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Salt Codfish in Milk

Salt codfish is soaked, then cooked in milk with wheat germ meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Salt Codfish in Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt fish in water overnight.

Cook

  1. Place the soaked fish in an earthen dish and cover it with milk, then add the wheat germ meal.

  2. Cook for 5 hours in an Aladdin Pail.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

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

  3. Fish + wheattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt fish
Provides the main protein and flavour; soaking removes excess salt before cooking.
Milk
Gently cooks the fish and forms a creamy, moist sauce as it simmers.
Wheat germ meal
Adds body and a nutty note, thickening the milk slightly as it cooks.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt fish overnight. Salt cod is heavily cured, so skipping or shortening the soak leaves the dish overly salty. Thorough soaking rehydrates the fish and restores a tender, mild texture before it is cooked in milk.

“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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