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Salt Cod

Salt Cod is a dish of boiled salt cod served with optional egg sauce and mashed parsnip butter and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salt Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the salt cod in water overnight.

  2. Boil the cod for one hour.

  3. Place the cod in a dish.

  4. Separate the flakes.

  5. Pour egg sauce over the cod.

  6. Serve hot.

Make the parsnips

  1. Boil the parsnips until tender.

  2. Mash the parsnips with butter and cream or milk.

  3. Spread the mashed parsnips around the cod.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + parsniptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Salt-cured fish that provides the main body and flakes once soaked and cooked.
Parsnips
Give the dish its natural sweetness and a soft, mashable texture when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mashed parsnips a smooth, savoury flavour.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash into a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Soak the salt cod overnight. Salt cod is heavily salted, and soaking in water draws out much of that salt. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the fish harshly salty.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, butter, cream. 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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