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Salt Cod

Salt Cod is a dish of soaked and boiled salt fish served with egg sauce and mashed parsnips.

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 fish

  1. Soak the salt fish in water overnight with vinegar to reduce saltiness.

  2. The next day, boil the fish until cooked, then flake it into a dish.

Serve

  1. Pour egg-sauce over the fish or serve with boiled and mashed parsnips mixed with butter and cream.

  2. Serve immediately on a warm plate.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 fish
Provides the main protein; soaking draws out salt so the fish is milder and edible.
Vinegar
Added to the soaking water to help reduce the saltiness of the fish.
Parsnips
Boiled and mashed, they supply a soft, sweet base to serve alongside the fish.
Butter
Mixed into the mashed parsnips to add fat, richness and smoothness.
Cream
Mixed into the mashed parsnips to add moisture and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt fish overnight. Salt fish must be soaked long enough to draw out excess salt, because salt is absorbed into the flesh and cannot be removed by a quick rinse. Changing the water helps the salt diffuse out, leaving the fish milder and better seasoned for the dish.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, 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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