Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Salt Fish

Broiled salt fish served with a butter‑flour gravy and optional boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the salt fish until tender, then broil for about 5 minutes until browned.

  2. Spread a little butter on the broiled fish.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1½ cups boiling water with 1 tablespoon flour mixed with a little cold water.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the warm water and boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of butter to the gravy.

Assemble and heat

  1. Chop the cold meat into fine pieces, removing tough bits.

  2. Place the chopped meat in a tin pan, pour the gravy over it, and heat for 10 minutes without cooking.

  3. Mix in equal amounts of chopped boiled potatoes or use leftover meat gravy instead of made gravy.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Fish + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the boiling water into a gravy as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the gravy and the fish.
Salt fish
Provides the main savoury, salty flavour and firm, flaky meat of the dish.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy for 3 minutes after adding the flour. Flour must be heated long enough for its starch to swell and thicken the liquid; undercooked flour leaves the gravy thin and tasting raw.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, pepper, meat):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, pepper, meat. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes