Name: Baked Chilean Sea Bass with Tomatillo Sauce
Ingredients: 1 lb tomatillos; 2 cup water; Nonstick cooking spray; 1 x garlic clove minced; 1/4 x onion chopped; 1 x serrano chile minced; 2 tsp oil; 1 tsp salt; 2 tsp Lime Juice; 4 x Chilean Sea Bass filets, 1" thick (4 oz ea); 1/4 cup low-fat Sour Cream; Chopped cilantro for garnish

Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. 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.

Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Clove + limetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Garlic + limetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,411 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,901 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Chilean sea bass: Forms the main flesh that cooks gently in the sauce and flakes when done.
Tomatillos: Provide the tart, bright base of the sauce, and their pectin helps it thicken as it reduces.
Sour cream: Adds cool creaminess that softens the sharp acidity of the sauce.
Serrano chile: Adds heat and fresh aroma to the sauce.
Lime juice: Adds acidity that brightens the tomatillo flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the fish until it just flakes. Sea bass is thick and lean, so it dries out quickly once past done. Testing with a fork and checking that the flesh flakes easily prevents overcooking while keeping the fish moist.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, onion, lime, cream):

Cuminfits better
Corianderfits better
Thymefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, onion, lime, cream. 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
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Cilantro	1 tbsp chopped fresh (1g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0

Baked Chilean Sea Bass with Tomatillo Sauce