Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Salted Cod

A boiled salted cod served with butter, lemon, and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Salted Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the cod

  1. Soak the salted cod in tepid water for 6 hours.

  2. Change to cold water for another 6 hours, changing the water every 1.5 hours.

Cook the fish

  1. In a large saucepan, place the fish and cover with water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove the fish and let it drain on a strainer.

Serve

  1. Place the fish on a dish and pour over melted butter mixed with lemon juice.

  2. Garnish with 8 plain‑boiled potatoes and serve.

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. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted cod
Forms the main flaky, meaty base; soaking draws out the salt it was cured with.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving a smooth, moist coating over the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and cuts its heaviness.

The step that matters

Soaking the salted cod. Salt cod is heavily cured, and salt only leaves the fish by diffusion into fresh water. Soaking too briefly, or not changing the water, leaves the fish overly salty and the flesh firmer than intended.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Mangofits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes