Name: Creamed Fish
Ingredients: 1 cup baked or boiled fish; ½ cup white or cream sauce; 2 small slices of toast, delicately browned and buttered; curled parsley for garnish

Why it works: Fish and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,341 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Creamed Fish

Ingredients

1 cup baked or boiled fish
½ cup white or cream sauce
2 small slices of toast, delicately browned and buttered
curled parsley for garnish

Directions

Prepare

Mix the fish and cream sauce together.
Reheat the mixture over hot water.

Serve

Serve the fish mixture on the buttered toast.
Garnish each slice with a spray of curled parsley.

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 + parsleytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Fish + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together937 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cream + parsleytop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,392 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish: Provides the main body and flakiness of the creamed dish.
White or cream sauce: Binds the fish and adds moisture and a smooth, creamy texture.
Toast: Forms a crisp, absorbent base that holds the creamed fish.