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To Dress Salt Cod

Salt cod served with a creamy parsnip mash or optional egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 669 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Dress Salt Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the salt cod in water with vinegar overnight.

  2. Boil the cod until cooked.

  3. Break the cooked cod into flakes on a serving dish.

Make the parsnip mash

  1. Boil the parsnips.

  2. Mash the boiled parsnips in a mortar.

  3. Combine the mashed parsnips with cream and butter mixed with flour.

Serve

  1. Pour the parsnip mixture over the cod and serve.

  2. Alternatively, serve with egg sauce instead of parsnips.

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.

  1. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Is the main protein; soaking it overnight draws out salt so it can be cooked and eaten.
Parsnips
Provide the bulk and starchy, sweet body of the mash once boiled and mashed.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the mash a smooth, soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the mash.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture so the mash holds together rather than running.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt cod. Soaking in water with vinegar for a full night draws out excess salt. Too short a soak leaves the fish overly salty, while the mild acid helps firm and season the flesh.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, cream, butter, flour, egg, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cream, butter, flour, egg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

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