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Boiled Codfish

Boiled codfish served with egg sauce, hard‑boiled eggs, cream, and beets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the codfish in lukewarm water overnight or for several hours, changing the water once or twice.

Cook and serve

  1. When ready, place the fish in fresh water and bring it to a boil or let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the fish and serve with egg sauce or sliced hard-boiled eggs topped with cream.

  3. Serve beets alongside the salt fish.

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. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

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

Codfish
Forms the main protein, which firms and flakes as it simmers after soaking.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a creamy texture that contrasts with the firm fish.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness to the topping, softening the saltiness of the fish.
Beets
Add sweetness and earthy flavour that balances the salted fish.

The step that matters

Soaking the codfish. Soaking draws out salt from the cured fish. Changing the water keeps the salt drawing out steadily, so the fish is not left too salty once 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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