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Salt-fish Dinner

A salt cod dinner served with boiled potatoes, beets, and parsnips, accompanied by melted butter or pork scraps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsnip work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 353 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Salt-fish Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and scald

  1. Soak the salt codfish overnight in cold water with the skin side up.

  2. The next morning, wash the fish and place it in a large kettle with plenty of fresh cold water.

  3. Set the kettle on the back of the stove to keep the water hot without boiling.

  4. Let the fish scald until just before dinner time.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the fish gently for five minutes, then drain it.

  2. Serve with melted butter or pork scraps, alongside boiled potatoes, beets, and parsnips.

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 + parsniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together353 recipes

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

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsniptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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 protein; soaking and gentle heat restore its moisture and tenderness.
Potatoes
Provide starchy bulk that soaks up the flavour of the butter and fish.
Beets
Add natural sweetness and earthy flavour that balances the salty fish.

The step that matters

Keep the water below a boil while the fish scalds. Salt cod turns tough and rubbery when it boils hard. Holding the water just below a simmer lets the fish soften gradually and stay moist and flaky.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato. 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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