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Salt Fish, or Dun Fish

Salt fish is a preserved fish prepared by soaking, boiling, and serving with boiled eggs, beets, and pork scraps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and pork work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 668 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Salt Fish, or Dun Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the whole fish in a kettle with 6 to 8 quarts of water overnight.

  2. Wash the fish and the kettle thoroughly.

  3. Place the fish back in the kettle with fresh water and heat it until scalding, but do not boil.

  4. Transfer the fish to a pan of cold water and wash off the skin and fins.

  5. Wash the kettle again.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the fish back in the kettle, add fresh water, and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Cut the fat salt pork into small pieces and fry in a pan, stirring frequently until light brown.

  3. Serve the fish on a clean napkin on a fish dish with drawn butter and pork scraps.

  4. If not cooking a whole fish, cut it into 8‑inch square pieces and garnish with sliced boiled eggs and boiled beets.

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

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

  2. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

  3. Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Soaking and scalding firm the fish and draw out salt, so it can be cooked and served as salt fish.
Fat salt pork
Rendered into crisp pork scraps that add fat and savory flavor to the serving.
Eggs
Boiled and sliced as a garnish, adding mild richness and texture beside the fish.
Boiled beets
Served as a garnish, adding sweetness and color to the plate.

The step that matters

Heating the fish until scalding, not boiling. Boiling at this stage can toughen and break up the fish flesh, so holding the water just below a boil keeps the fish tender and intact.

“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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