Name: Dressed Cod and Creamed Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons bread crumbs; ½ teaspoon chopped parsley; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 lemon rind, grated; 1 egg; 1 ounce butter; water (for sauce)

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Dressed Cod and Creamed Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Mix bread crumbs, parsley, salt, and pepper on a plate.
Remove skin from the fish and wash it in salt water. Dry well with a clean cloth.
Brush the fish with beaten egg and roll it in the bread crumb mixture.
Place the fish in a baking pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.
After cooking, place the fish on a dish.
Add a little water to the fish juices in the baking pan and strain 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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).