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Salt Cod-fish

Salt cod fish boiled for 5–6 hours with potatoes, beets, carrots, and salt pork or butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Salt Cod-fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt cod fish in a pan of cold water with the skin side up to extract the salt.

  2. In the morning, cover the fish with water and bring it to a boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover tightly and reduce heat to cook for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. Serve with potatoes, beets, carrots, and salt pork or butter sauce.

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. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Carrot + porktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,772 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt cod-fish
Forms the main protein; curing firms its flesh and seasons it heavily.
Potatoes
Starchy base that absorbs some of the cooking liquid and fish flavour.
Beets
Adds natural sweetness and earthy flavour, along with strong colour.
Carrots
Adds gentle sweetness and softens during cooking to balance the salted fish.
Salt pork or butter sauce
Adds fat and richness, which mellows the saltiness of the cod.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt cod. Salt cod is heavily cured, and soaking draws out salt by osmosis through its flesh. Soaking too briefly leaves the fish overly salty, while the water changes help pull out more salt.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, potato, pork):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, pork. 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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