Name: Fried Small Fish
Ingredients: small fish (such as perch, smelt, or porgy); 1 beaten egg; bread crumbs or flour; coarse sea salt; black pepper; fat (such as slices of salt pork); onion slices; green or red pepper (seeds removed); mint sprig (optional)

Why it works: Pepper and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,372 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fried Small Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the fish without splitting them.
Dip the fish in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs or seasoned flour.
Heat fat in a pan until hot.
Fry the fish for 10 minutes, then turn and brown the other side.
For added flavor, place a thin slice of fat salt pork, onion slices, and pepper inside each fish before breading.
Tie or skewer the fish, then fry in the remaining fat after removing the pork.
Serve on a hot dish.

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 + minttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,372 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together668 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, bread, pepper, pork, onion):

Parsleyfits better
Garlicfits better
Thymefits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, bread, pepper, pork, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.