Name: Farce Pour Quenelles De Poisson
Ingredients: 250 grams cooked fish (more or less, depending on the quantity of quenelles desired); fresh bread soaked in milk; butter; 2-3 hard-boiled egg yolks; coarse sea salt; pepper; grated nutmeg; 1-2 fresh eggs

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Farce Pour Quenelles De Poisson

Ingredients

Directions

Mash the cooked fish in a bowl.
In a saucepan, combine the soaked bread and a bit of butter; cook over low heat until it forms a thick paste.
Stir in the crushed hard-boiled egg yolks to bind the mixture.
Once well combined, mix equal parts of the mashed fish, paste, and butter in a bowl.
Add salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and 1-2 fresh eggs; mix thoroughly.
Shape the mixture into quenelles using river fish or white fish like whiting, sole, or turbot.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the nutmeg

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

Parsleyfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Cinnamonfits less well
Tarragonfits less well

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