Why it works: Parsnip and mustard share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 89 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
To Boil Salt Codfish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Soak the salt codfish in cold water the day before serving, keeping it blood-warm.
Scrub the fish clean with a hard brush.
Place it in a kettle of fresh cold water with ½ cup of molasses stirred in.
Heat the kettle near the fire until ready to cook.
Cook and serve
Boil the fish hard for 15-20 minutes.
Drain the fish.
Cut it into large pieces.
Wrap the pieces in a fine napkin.
Serve on a large dish, garnished with hard‑boiled eggs cut in half or sliced.
Prepare egg sauce by mixing drawn butter with finely chopped hard‑boiled eggs.
Serve the fish with mashed potatoes on one side and boiled parsnips on the other.
Leftovers
For leftovers, warm the fish in a buttered skillet over hot coals or make small cakes and fry them.
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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Parsnip + mustardtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together89 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + parsniptop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together353 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,340 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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 protein, softened by soaking and boiling to become tender and flaky.
- Molasses
- Adds a mild sweetness and depth of flavour to the cooking water.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Provide a firm, mild garnish and are finely chopped into the egg sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the drawn-butter egg sauce and to frying leftovers.
The step that matters
Soaking the salt codfish. Salt cod is very salty and must be soaked in cold water, with the water changed as needed, so that excess salt leaches out. Soaking too briefly leaves the fish harsh and overly salty, while the fish stays moist and tender when it is kept cold during soaking.
Swap the parsnip
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, egg, potato, mustard, butter):
- Chivefits better
- Horseradishfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Parsnipthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, egg, potato, mustard, butter. 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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