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Salt Cod with Parsnip Puree

Salt cod served with a creamy parsnip puree and garnished with lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Salt Cod with Parsnip Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the salt cod in cold water for at least 12 hours.

  2. Put the cod in a stew pan and simmer below boiling point until cooked.

  3. Drain the cod well and place it in a dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 ½ oz of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 ½ oz of flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add 2 cups of milk, stirring until thickened.

  4. Stir in the chopped hard boiled eggs.

  5. Pour the sauce over the cod.

Make the parsnip puree and serve

  1. Mash the boiled parsnips with 1 oz of butter and ½ cup of cream or milk.

  2. Season the parsnip puree to taste.

  3. Serve the parsnip puree around the cod, garnished with lemon slices.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Parsnip + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 cod
Forms the main body of the dish; soaking removes salt so the fish becomes mild and flaky.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce as part of a roux.
Butter
Enriches the roux and the puree, adding fat for richness and smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the starch in the roux swells.
Parsnips
Mashed into a puree, giving the dish its sweet, earthy flavour and smooth texture.
Hard boiled eggs
Chopped into the sauce, adding body and a soft, rich texture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk to the roux. Adding the milk slowly while stirring lets the starch in the roux disperse evenly. Adding it all at once can leave lumps and an uneven sauce.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg, cream, lemon. 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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