Name: How Tg Cook a Salt Codfish
Ingredients: 1 large tender salt codfish; cold water; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 good lump of butter; equal parts of milk and boiling water; 2 hard boiled eggs; carrots or parsnips (for serving)

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

How Tg Cook a Salt Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Soak the salt codfish in a large tub of cold water, skin side up, from 10 a.m. until evening, changing the water once.
Wash and clean the fish, leaving the fins and tail on.

Cook the fish and sauce

Place the fish in a kettle with water and simmer for two hours.
Mix the flour and butter until smooth.
Gradually add equal parts of cold milk and boiling water, stirring until it boils.
Stir in the chopped hard boiled eggs.

Serve

Serve the sauce in a tureen alongside the fish.
Serve with carrots or 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,029 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 codfish: Provides the main protein and savoury flavour once soaked to remove excess salt.
Flour: Thickens the sauce by swelling in the hot liquid as it boils.
Butter: Adds richness and body to the flour-thickened sauce.
Milk: Gives the sauce a creamy base and mild sweetness.
Hard boiled eggs: Add body and a soft, rich texture to the sauce when stirred in.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk and boiling water. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring keeps flour from clumping, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy as it thickens and boils.

Swap the carrot

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

Chivefits better
Potatofits better
Leekfits better
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, egg. 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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How Tg Cook a Salt Codfish