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Salt Cod with Egg Sauce

A baked dish of boiled salt cod mixed with egg sauce and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salt Cod with Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the salt cod.

  2. Boil the salt cod.

  3. Cool the boiled salt cod and chop it finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan and thicken it with cornflour.

  2. Add the mashed potatoes, butter, beaten eggs, and chopped parsley to the thickened milk.

  3. Stir in the chopped salt cod and mix until heated through.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep dish.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod
Provides the main flavour and body of the dish.
Eggs
Set with gentle heat to give the sauce richness and a thicker texture.
Cornflour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Mashed potatoes
Add bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thicken the heated milk with cornflour. Cornflour must be heated in liquid so its starch swells and gelatinises; if the milk is not hot enough or is not stirred, the sauce stays thin or turns lumpy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

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