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Grilled Fish

A simple fish dish grilled and seasoned with olive oil and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grilled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the fish with olive oil and pepper.

  2. Grill the fish until thoroughly browned.

  3. Squeeze lemon over the fish before serving.

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.

  1. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Fish + olivetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish and carries its flavour and texture.
Olive oil
Coats the fish to prevent sticking and promote browning on the grill.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the grilled fish.

The step that matters

Grill the fish until thoroughly browned. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs a dry surface and sufficient heat. Fish that is too wet or under-heated will steam rather than brown, losing flavour.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, olive):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, olive. 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.

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