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Soiled Salt Codfish

Salt codfish soaked, boiled, and topped with egg sauce, served hot with boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,073 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Soiled Salt Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the salt codfish for 1 to 2 nights to freshen it.

  2. Scrape and wash the fish.

Poach the fish

  1. Place the fish in a kettle over heat and bring to a boil.

  2. Skim the surface, then remove the kettle from heat and cover it.

  3. Let it sit for 15 minutes, then drain.

Serve

  1. Pour egg sauce over the fish and serve hot with boiled potatoes.

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. Sauce + potatotop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Main protein; soaking draws out salt so the flesh becomes mild and tender.
Egg sauce
Adds richness and moisture, coating the fish with a creamy, savoury layer.
Boiled potatoes
Starchy base that soaks up the sauce and balances the salty fish.

The step that matters

Bringing the fish to a boil, then letting it sit off heat. Boiling too hard can toughen and break up the flakes of cod. Removing the pot from heat and covering it lets the fish cook gently and stay moist.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce. 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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