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Salt Codfish and Potatoes

Salt codfish served with boiled potatoes, drawn butter or egg sauce, and optional cucumbers or hard boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salt Codfish and Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt codfish overnight.

  2. Drain the water and cover the fish with fresh lukewarm water.

  3. Let it stand for a short time.

  4. Simmer the fish in lukewarm water over low heat for 1.5 to 2 hours until done.

  5. Remove the skin from the fish.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish with drawn butter or egg sauce and whole boiled potatoes.

  2. Each person can mash or cut the potatoes on their own plate.

  3. If convenient, serve cucumbers in vinegar, pickles, or nasturtiums.

  4. Garnish the fish with hard boiled eggs if desired.

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 + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cucumber + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + cucumbertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,185 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 flavour and firm, flaky texture once soaked and simmered.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk that soaks up the butter or egg sauce served alongside the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish and potatoes.

The step that matters

Simmer the fish over low heat. Gentle heat keeps the fish tender and moist; a hard boil toughens the proteins and makes the flesh dry and stringy.

Swap the cucumber

The recipe marks cucumber as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, egg. 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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