Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Salt Codfish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Skin the fish and tear it into strips.
Place the strips in a fish pan and cover with cold water.
Change the water at bedtime, keeping it cold.
Cook and serve
Put the fish in a pot, cover with cold water, and heat slowly on the stove.
Once it reaches a boil, remove it immediately; do not let it boil.
Serve dressed with butter and pepper.
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.
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Salt codfish
- Is the main ingredient, cured in salt and softened by repeated soaking in cold water.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, coating the fish with a smooth, savoury flavour.
The step that matters
Remove the fish as soon as it reaches a boil. Boiling toughens the proteins in fish and makes the flesh dry and stringy. Heating slowly and pulling it off at the first boil keeps it tender and moist.
“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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