Name: Creamed or Picked Up Salt Fish
Ingredients: 2 cups white sauce; 1 cup cooked fish, shredded; 1 cup cold boiled potato cubes; 1/2 teaspoon white pepper; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 1 hard boiled egg, chopped

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed or Picked Up Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Soak the shredded fish in cold water and boil slowly for 20 minutes.
Drain the fish and taste it; if too salty, soak it in cold water again and bring to a boil, then drain.

Combine and serve

Prepare the white sauce and add the cooked fish, mixing well.
Gently stir in the potato cubes, then serve on rounds of toast.
Garnish with chopped parsley and hard boiled egg.

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.

Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,451 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sauce + fishtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

White sauce: Forms a creamy binding that holds the fish and potato together.
Cooked fish: Provides the main savoury flavour and substance of the dish.
Boiled potato: Adds body and soft texture to the creamed mixture.
Hard boiled egg: Adds a rich, mild texture as a garnish.

The step that matters

Drain and taste the fish before combining. Salt fish stays very salty after boiling, so tasting and re-soaking it if needed prevents the whole creamed dish from being too salty once the sauce is added.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, fish, potato, parsley, egg):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, fish, potato, parsley, 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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Creamed or Picked Up Salt Fish