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Salt Codfish

Salted codfish prepared by soaking, boiling, and simmering with butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the salt codfish in fresh water for 24 hours.

  2. Remove the scales from the codfish.

  3. Wash the codfish well.

  4. Place the codfish in a kettle filled with soft fresh water.

  5. Skim off any impurities from the water.

  6. Remove the codfish from heat when the water begins to boil.

  7. Cover the kettle and let it sit for 15 minutes.

  8. Drain the codfish.

  9. Pick over the fish to remove bones and fins.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Add flour to the melted butter.

  3. Add salt and pepper to the mixture.

  4. Moisten the mixture with a little water or milk.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the picked codfish to the mixture.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 codfish
Provides the main fish body and savory flavor once soaked and freshened.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and forms the base for the flour mixture.
Flour
Mixed with melted butter to thicken the sauce and give it body.

The step that matters

Removing the codfish from heat when the water begins to boil. Keeping the water just below a full boil lets the fish poach gently, so it stays tender rather than tough and dry.

“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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