Name: To Dress a Salt Cod
Ingredients: 1 salt cod; 1 glass vinegar; water; egg sauce or parsnips; butter; cream

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Dress a Salt Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

Soak the salt cod in water overnight with the vinegar to remove the salt.
The next day, boil the cod until cooked through.

Serve

Remove the skin and flake the fish into a serving dish.
Pour egg sauce or mashed boiled parsnips mixed with butter and cream over the fish.
Serve on a warm plate to keep it from cooling quickly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Vinegar + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,064 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt cod: Forms the main body of the dish, flaking into tender pieces once cooked.
Vinegar: Helps draw out salt during the overnight soak, mellowing the fish.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the parsnips.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, giving the parsnip topping a smoother texture.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.