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Salt Cod

Salt cod simmered in water, served with melted butter and lemon, garnished with boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salt Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Soak

  1. Soak the salt fish in tepid water for 6 hours, then in cold water for another 6 hours, changing the water 3 or 4 times.

Poach

  1. Place the fish in a saucepan and nearly fill it with cold water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam that forms.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer until the fish is cooked.

  5. Drain the fish and place it on a serving dish.

Sauce and serve

  1. Make plain melted butter and stir in the lemon juice.

  2. Pour the butter sauce over the fish and garnish with 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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  5. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt fish
Forms the main body of the dish, and soaking removes much of its salt before cooking.
Plain melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat coating that carries the flavour of the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the fish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after boiling. Once the water reaches a boil, lowering the heat to a gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly. A hard boil can toughen the flesh and break it apart.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, 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.

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