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Codfish Hash

A hash of codfish and mashed potatoes cooked with milk and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the codfish in water overnight to remove excess salt.

  2. Boil the potatoes until tender, then peel and mash them.

Make the hash

  1. Flake the soaked codfish and mix it with the mashed potatoes.

  2. Add enough milk and butter to achieve a creamy consistency.

  3. Cook the mixture in a skillet over medium heat until heated through, stirring occasionally.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main flavor and flaky texture, and is soaked first to reduce its salt.
Potatoes
Form the body of the hash when mashed, binding the fish and giving a soft texture.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed mixture becomes creamy rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness, helping the mixture feel creamy.

The step that matters

Soaking the codfish overnight. Salted cod is very salty, and soaking draws out excess salt. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the hash too salty, since the salt is not diluted before the fish is mixed into the potatoes and cooked.

“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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