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Salt Fish with Cream Sauce

Salt cod fillets simmered in water and milk, thickened with a butter‑flour paste, seasoned with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salt Fish with Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Divide the fish into very small fillets.

Cook the fish

  1. In a stewpan, combine the fish, water, and milk, and simmer for about 40 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Knead the flour and butter together to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the flour and butter mixture to the saucepan in small pieces.

  3. Simmer for about 10 minutes until thickened.

  4. Season with pepper to taste.

  5. Serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod fish
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce, giving it body as the paste cooks into the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel, helping the flour blend into the sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce and adds mild sweetness and softness.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter paste. If the paste is dropped in as large lumps, the flour will clump and not disperse evenly. Adding it in small pieces while simmering lets each piece hydrate and thicken the liquid smoothly.

“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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