Name: Creole-style Flounder
Ingredients: 1 large green bell pepper, sliced into thin strips; 1 1/2 cups sliced green onions; 2 tablespoons butter or margarine; 1 14-1/2- to 16-ounce can tomatoes, chopped (2 cups); 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce; Salt; Ground black pepper; 1/2 teaspoon powdered thyme; 1 bay leaf; 1 1/2 pounds fillets of flounder or other white fish; 3 cups hot cooked rice

Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flounder fillets: Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Tomatoes: Supply acidity and body, forming the base of the sauce.
Tomato sauce: Thickens the sauce and adds concentrated tomato flavour and moisture.
Green bell pepper: Adds sweet, vegetal flavour and texture to the sauce after softening in butter.
Green onions: Add mild onion aroma that mellows during cooking.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavour when softening the vegetables.

The step that matters

Baking the fish. Flounder is thin and cooks quickly, so it can dry out or turn rubbery if overbaked. Checking that it flakes easily with a fork shows it is just cooked through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, tomato, sauce, thyme, fish, rice):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Shallotfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, tomato, sauce, thyme, fish, rice. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Salmon	100g cooked	208
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Bay Leaf	1 leaf (0.6g)	2
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Creole-style Flounder