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To Boil Salt Fish

A method of boiling salted fish with butter, water, flour, pepper, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

To Boil Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt fish in cold water overnight.

  2. Expose the fish to air for some time, then soak it again until softened.

  3. Brush the fish clean and wash it thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Place the fish in a fish kettle with plenty of cold water.

  2. Heat the fish slowly, keeping it just below simmering for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on its weight. Skim off any scum that forms during cooking.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For serving, prepare a sauce by melting butter with water and flour, then add pepper, a little salt, and minced parsley. Heat the fish in the sauce until warmed through.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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 fish
Is the main ingredient, its flesh softened by repeated soaking before cooking.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and a rich, smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water sauce so it clings to the fish.
Minced parsley
Adds fresh herbal aroma and color to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the fish slowly below a simmer. Gentle heat keeps the fish tender and prevents its proteins from toughening and breaking apart, which vigorous boiling would cause.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, 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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