Name: Fish Diet
Ingredients: 4 oz plain boiled white fish (such as whiting, plaice, flounders, or haddock); ½ lb potatoes; 1 pint milk

Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Fish Diet

Ingredients

4 oz plain boiled white fish (such as whiting, plaice, flounders, or haddock)
½ lb potatoes
1 pint milk

Directions

Boil the fish until cooked through.
Boil the potatoes until tender.
Serve the fish with the boiled potatoes.
For supper, serve 1 pint of milk.

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.

Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 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

White fish: Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Potatoes: Provide starch that becomes soft and fluffy when boiled until tender.
Milk: Served as a drink alongside the meal, adding moisture and richness.

“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.