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Salt Cod and Onions

Salt cod is soaked, boiled, flaked, and served in a sauce of onions, flour, cream, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt cod in vinegar and water.

  2. Boil the cod.

  3. Flake the cod into pieces.

  4. Dice the onions.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the diced onions in a pan until brown.

  2. Add flour while cooking.

  3. Gradually stir in ½ cup of cream and a little water.

  4. Add a bit of butter to the onions.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Add the flaked fish to the sauce.

  7. Bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 cod
Provides the main fish, which is flaked into the finished dish.
Onions
Browning in the pan develops deep, sweet flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cream and liquid into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the onions as they cook.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the cream and water. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, flour, cream, butter, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour, cream, butter, pepper. 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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