Name: Salt Cod
Ingredients: good salt cod; milk; water; egg sauce; parsneps or potatoes

Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Salt Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the salt cod in milk and water, or just water, for several hours, or up to a whole day if very dry and salty.
Place the soaked fish in a fish kettle with plenty of cold water.
Heat the kettle on the stove; when nearly boiling, skim the surface.
Let the fish simmer gently until cooked through.
Serve with egg sauce and garnish with parsneps or potatoes.

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.

Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sauce + potatotop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,073 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Milk + saucetop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).