Name: To Broil Fish
Ingredients: fish; butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper

Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Broil Fish

Ingredients

fish
butter
coarse sea salt
black pepper

Directions

Scrape and wipe the fish carefully.
Heat a platter.
Add butter, salt, and pepper to the platter and keep it warm.
Warm a gridiron and place the fish on it.
Lay the gridiron over the coals with the flesh side down.
Cook until the fish is a nice brown.
Turn the fish skin side down.
Once cooked, place the fish on the platter and baste with the butter, salt, and pepper.
Cover with a hot platter until served.

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.

Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,948 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).