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To Boil Salt Fish

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Boil Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the salt fish in a large quantity of cold water overnight.

  2. Expose the fish to the air for some time, then soak it again in water until softened.

  3. Clean the fish thoroughly and place it in a fish kettle with cold water.

  4. Heat the fish slowly, keeping it just below simmering for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on its weight.

  5. Remove any scum that forms on the surface carefully.

  6. Serve the fish on a hot napkin with egg sauce and boiled parsnip.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, sauce, parsley, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

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

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