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Salted Codfish, French Way

Salted codfish cooked with butter, onion, lemon, parsley, and served with fried bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Salted Codfish, French Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak dry codfish in cold water for 48 hours, changing the water several times.

  2. If using salt fish in tubs, soak for a few hours.

  3. Scrape and divide the codfish into 4 large squares.

  4. Place the squares in a stewpan with cold water and heat until it bubbles. Remove from heat after 12-15 minutes and drain.

  5. Carefully remove bones and break the fish into pieces.

Make the creamy codfish

  1. Chop the onion.

  2. Fry the onion in butter in a flat stewpan over low heat until soft but not colored.

  3. Add the codfish pieces to the onion and toss to mix well with the butter.

  4. Gradually add 6 ounces of butter in small amounts while stirring until the mixture is thick and creamy.

  5. Season with a pinch of nutmeg, lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Dish the codfish and surround it with fried bread croutons.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Forms the flaky body of the dish once soaked, poached and broken into pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and, beaten in gradually, emulsifies with the fish into a thick, creamy texture.
White onion
Softens into a sweet, mild base that builds flavour under the fish and butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and mild fish.

The step that matters

Adding the butter gradually while stirring. Adding butter in small amounts while stirring lets it emulsify into the fish and onion. Adding it all at once can split the mixture into greasy pools instead of a thick, creamy texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, lemon, parsley, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, lemon, parsley, bread. 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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