Name: Codfish Dinner
Ingredients: codfish; water; boiled potatoes; boiled beets (or onions); drawn butter gravy; pork scraps; hard boiled eggs

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Codfish Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the codfish in plenty of water early in the morning.
About an hour before dinner, place the fish on the back of the stove and cook it slowly without boiling.
Prepare boiled potatoes and boiled beets (or onions) as sides.
Serve drawn butter gravy and pork scraps in a separate dish.
Garnish the fish with hard boiled eggs.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).