Name: Baked Stuffed Fish
Ingredients: One whole fish weighing 3-4 lbs, scaled and cleaned; 3 tsp margarine; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 garlic clove, minced; 1 large onion, thinly sliced; 2 cups bread crumbs; ¼ chopped onion; 1 hot pepper, seed removed and chopped; 2 tsp lime or lemon juice; 1 tomato, sliced

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).
Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,491 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + limetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish: Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to become flaky and tender.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and butter, giving the stuffing body and a toasted topping.
Onion: Softens and sweetens when sauteed, adding savory flavor to the stuffing and topping.
Margarine: Adds fat for flavor and helps the stuffing and fish brown lightly in the oven.
Tomato: Adds moisture and mild acidity as it bakes over the fish.
Lime or lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the fish and stuffing.

The step that matters

Ensure the stuffing is moist. Dry stuffing absorbs no juices from the fish and can taste crumbly, while bread crumbs need enough fat and liquid to soften and hold together during baking.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, garlic, onion, bread, lime, tomato):

Cuminfits better
Corianderfits better
Thymefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, garlic, onion, bread, lime, tomato. 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
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Salmon	100g cooked	208
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Seed	not in our table	0

Baked Stuffed Fish