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Salt Cod Rechauffe

A baked salt cod dish topped with mashed potatoes and egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salt Cod Rechauffe

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the bones and skin from the salt cod and place the flesh in a pie dish.

  3. Pour the leftover egg sauce over the cod and season lightly with pepper.

  4. If no egg sauce is available, use fresh melted butter to moisten the fish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mash the potatoes with milk or butter.

  2. Arrange the mashed potatoes around the edge of the fish.

  3. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are golden brown.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Sauce + potatotop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its savory, flaky fish base.
Egg sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the reheated fish does not dry out.
Potatoes
Form a mashed topping that browns in the oven and insulates the fish.
Milk or butter
Makes the mashed potatoes smooth and adds richness and fat.

The step that matters

Baking until the potatoes are golden brown. Reheating fish too long dries out its proteins and makes it tough. Baking only until the potato topping browns keeps the cod moist underneath.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, pepper, milk. 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.

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