Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Salt Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Skin the fish and cut it into squares, three to four inches across.
Soak the pieces in cold water overnight.
Desalt and serve
If still very salty, place the pieces in a pan of cold water, bring to a boil, and boil for 20 to 30 minutes.
Serve with melted butter or egg sauce.
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.
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 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
- Fish
- Provides the main body and flesh, which salting firms and preserves while soaking reduces its saltiness.
- Cold water
- Draws salt out of the fish through diffusion during soaking and boiling.
The step that matters
Soaking the pieces overnight. Salt slowly diffuses out of the fish into the water. Too short a soak leaves the flesh too salty, so the pieces may need extra boiling to be palatable.
“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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