Name: Scalloped Fish
Ingredients: 2 pounds fresh cod; 1 cup vinegar; 3 cups water; ½ cup sugar; 1 tablespoon mustard; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 cup bread crumbs; ¾ cup butter

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Boil the cod in vinegar, water, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper until cooked.
Let the fish cool, then remove the skin and bones, and flake it finely.

Bake and serve

Mix the flaked fish with bread crumbs and melted butter.
Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod: Forms the main body of the dish once cooked, flaked, and combined with the crumbs.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the melted butter and add body, giving the flaked fish a structure that holds together.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
Vinegar: Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, sharpening the flavour of the fish.

Swap the mustard

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardthe original
Shallotfits about as well
Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, bread, butter. 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.