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Salt Fish

A dish of boiled salt cod served with a butter sauce and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt cod in water for at least 24 hours, skin side up.

  2. Cut the fish into 2 or 3 pieces.

  3. Place the fish in cold water and boil on low heat.

  4. Once it simmers, remove from heat and let it sit for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add salt, white pepper, parsley, lemon juice, and flour; mix well.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish or serve it separately.

Serve

  1. Serve with plain boiled potatoes.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Capers + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod
Is the main protein, which is rehydrated by soaking so it becomes tender and edible.
Butter
Forms the base of the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a smooth sauce that clings to the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce.
Potatoes
Provide a plain starchy side that soaks up the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer, then rest the fish. Boiling salt cod hard toughens its proteins and makes it dry and stringy. Keeping it at a gentle simmer and then letting it rest off the heat lets it cook evenly and stay moist and flaky.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, butter, parsley, lemon, flour, 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.

More salt cod recipes

Stewed 11with Egg Sauce 10Boiled 9Egg Sauce for 7Chowder 7Creamed 6 See all 24 →

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