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Salt Cod

Salt Cod is a dish of salted cod served with boiled potatoes and lemon butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt fish in tepid water for 6 hours.

  2. Then soak in cold water for another 6 hours, changing the water 3 or 4 times.

Cook the fish

  1. Fill a stewpan or saucepan with cold water and bring it to a boil.

  2. Skim the surface and simmer for a few minutes.

  3. Drain the fish and place it on a dish.

Serve

  1. Make melted butter and squeeze in the juice of the lemon.

  2. Pour the lemon butter over the fish.

  3. Garnish with plain boiled potatoes.

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

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

  2. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  5. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt fish
Salt-cured fish whose firm flesh must be desalted by soaking before it is cooked and eaten.
Potatoes
Starchy, mild accompaniment that adds bulk and soaks up the lemon butter.
Lemon
Juice adds acidity that brightens the rich, salty fish and butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the lemon flavour over the fish.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt fish. Salt cod is cured with a lot of salt. Soaking it long enough in fresh water, changing the water several times, draws out the salt so the fish is not overly salty. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves it harsh, and the later simmering cannot fix that.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, butter. 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.

More salt cod recipes

Stewed 11with Egg Sauce 10Boiled 9Egg Sauce for 7Chowder 7Creamed 6 See all 24 →

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