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Salt Fish

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the salt fish in soft water for 1 to 3 nights, changing the water 2-3 times.

  2. Place the soaked fish in cold or lukewarm water and bring to a boil slowly.

  3. Simmer the fish for 30 minutes to 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the fish from the pot using a fish drainer, and discard any bones and skin.

  5. Rinse the fish with 1 quart of boiling water.

  6. Serve the fish with egg sauce, parsnips, and mashed potatoes.

  7. For a variation, stew the fish in gravy flavored with onions or shallots, thickened with flour, butter, and cream.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Parsnip + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsnip + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together353 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, sauce, parsnip, potato, horseradish, flour):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, sauce, parsnip, potato, horseradish, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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