Name: Salt Cod with Egg Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pound salt cod, soaked and boiled; 1 small cup milk or cream; 1 teaspoon cornflour or flour; 2 eggs, beaten; 2 tablespoons butter; chopped parsley, to taste; ½ pound mashed potato; pepper, to taste

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salt Cod with Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Pick or chop the soaked and boiled salt cod finely.

Make the sauce

Heat the milk in a saucepan.
Thicken the milk with cornflour.
Add the mashed potato, butter, eggs, and parsley.
Stir in the fish.
Heat until smoking hot.

Serve

Pour into a deep dish.
Serve the sauce separately over the fish.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod: Forms the main flaky body of the dish and provides its savoury flavour.
Eggs: Set when heated, giving the mixture body and a creamy, binding texture.
Mashed potato: Adds bulk and softness, helping hold the mixture together and smooth.
Cornflour: Thickens the milk into a smooth base that carries the other ingredients.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat until smoking hot. Eggs thicken as they heat, so overheating can curdle or scramble them and leave the sauce grainy. Heat gently and stop once it is hot enough to serve.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, butter, parsley, pepper):

Shallotfits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Potatothe original
Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, butter, parsley, pepper. 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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Salt Cod with Egg Sauce