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Salt Fish

Salt cod served with egg sauce, mashed parsnips, and mashed potatoes, baked with cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and potato work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 353 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt cod in water overnight.

  2. Boil the cod until tender, then separate the flakes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare egg sauce and pour it over the fish.

  2. Mash boiled parsnips with butter and cream, spreading the mixture around the fish.

  3. For leftovers, mix the fish with mashed potatoes and parsnips in a buttered pie dish, layering them alternately.

  4. Sprinkle cayenne pepper on top and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with sliced hard-boiled egg.

  2. Serve with egg sauce.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod
Provides the main flaky fish that forms the body of the dish.
Parsnips
Mashed and spread around the fish, adding body and a soft, sweet texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mashed parsnips a smooth, silky texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture to the mash, keeping it smooth and spreadable.
Egg
Forms the sauce that is poured over the fish, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Soak the salt cod overnight. Salt cod is heavily cured, and soaking draws out excess salt and rehydrates the fish. Under-soaking leaves the dish too salty and tough, so the fish should be soaked fully before boiling.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, potato, pepper, egg. 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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