Name: French Ways of Dressing Salt Fish
Ingredients: 1 tail of salt cod; 1 cup cream; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

French Ways of Dressing Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

Soak the tail of the salt cod until softened.
Separate the flakes of cod.

Make and serve

In a saucepan, mix cream, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, and salt.
Add the cod to the sauce and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Serve hot.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Salt cod: Forms the main body of the dish, providing its flaky texture and savory flavor.
Flour: Thickens the cream and butter into a smooth sauce that clings to the cod.
Cream: Provides richness and moisture, forming the base of the sauce.
Butter: Adds fat and flavor, helping to enrich the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the cod to the sauce and simmer gently. Simmering gently keeps the cream from boiling hard or scorching, and prevents the flour-thickened sauce from breaking or turning grainy while the cod warms through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, flour, pepper):

Nutmegfits better
Parsleythe original
Tarragonfits about as well
Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, pepper. 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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French Ways of Dressing Salt Fish