Name: Whiting, Broiled
Ingredients: small whiting; soft butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Whiting and butter work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whiting, Broiled

Ingredients

small whiting
soft butter
pepper
coarse sea salt

Directions

Place the small whiting between a wire gridiron.
Broil over a clear fire until cooked through.
Rub with soft butter and sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Serve one fish for each person.

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.

Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together510 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Whiting + peppertop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together374 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).