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Salt Codfish, Broiled

Broiled salt codfish served with melted butter, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salt Codfish, Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the codfish pieces in water overnight, changing the water 2-3 times.

  2. The next morning, rinse the pieces in fresh cold water, then drain and dry them with a napkin.

Broil and serve

  1. Brush a little butter over each piece and broil until cooked through.

  2. Once done, pour melted butter over the codfish.

  3. Season with pepper and lemon juice.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Soaking draws out salt, so the fish becomes mild and tender enough to eat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown and keeping the fish moist under heat.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt cod. Salt cod must be soaked long enough and the water changed to remove excess salt. Under-soaked fish tastes harsh and overly salty, while proper soaking lets the flesh relax and become tender and moist when cooked.

“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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