Name: French Baked Fish
Ingredients: plain bread for dressing; coarse sea salt; black pepper; parsley; 1 can of tomatoes; butter; a dash of cayenne; 1 large head of garlic

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

French Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make a plain bread dressing seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.
Stuff the fish with the dressing and arrange it in a baking pan.
Form the remaining dressing into large flat cakes and place them in the bottom of the pan.
Pour the can of tomatoes over the fish and cakes, seasoning with salt, butter, and a dash of cayenne.
Mince the garlic finely and sprinkle it over the top.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, parsley, tomato, butter):

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Celeryfits about as well
Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, parsley, tomato, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.