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Creamed Salt Fish

A dish of cold fish, boiled rice and hard boiled eggs mixed with butter, seasoned with salt, pepper and curry powder, then warmed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Creamed Salt Fish

Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Creamed Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold fish and hard boiled eggs.

  2. Mix the chopped fish and eggs with the boiled rice.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the butter and season with salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of curry powder.

  2. Warm the mixture in a saucepan.

  3. Serve as hot as possible.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

  4. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and moisture, making the mixture creamy when warmed.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the mixture.
Boiled rice
Bulks out the mixture and gives it a soft, starchy body.
Cold fish
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Warm the mixture in a saucepan. Heating gently and stirring keeps the butter emulsified and the mixture creamy, while overheating can dry out the rice and make the fish tough.

“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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