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Salt-fish Hash

Salt-fish hash is a dish made from cold boiled salt fish, boiled potatoes, fat salt pork, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Salt-fish Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and bones from the cold boiled salt fish and chop it finely.

  2. Chop twice as much boiled potato as there is fish.

Cook the hash

  1. Slice the fat salt pork and fry it in a pan until brown, then remove it and keep it hot.

  2. In the same pan, add the minced fish and potatoes with salt and pepper, stirring until heated through.

  3. Press the mixture together into a cake on one side of the pan and let it brown on the bottom.

Serve

  1. Turn the hash out onto a hot dish and serve with the fried pork.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled salt fish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the flaked body of the hash.
Boiled potatoes
Add bulk and starch that bind the fish and hold the hash together.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat for frying and adds savoury flavour and browning to the dish.

The step that matters

Press the mixture into a cake and let it brown on the bottom. Pressing packs the fish and potato together so they hold shape, and undisturbed contact with the hot pan lets the bottom brown through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavour and a crisp crust.

“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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