Name: Salt Cod with Parsnips
Ingredients: salt cod; water; vinegar; parsnips; butter; cream

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 with Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the salt cod in water overnight, adding ½ cup of vinegar to draw out the salt.
Boil the cod the next day until cooked, then break it into flakes on a serving dish.
Boil and mash the parsnips with butter and cream, then pour over the cod.
Alternatively, serve with egg sauce and treat the parsnips as a separate vegetable.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Vinegar + parsniptop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together212 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).
Vinegar + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,064 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).