Name: Fish Timbale Decorated with Slices of Cucumber Pickle
Ingredients: quenelle forcemeat; salted water; egg; bread crumbs; sauce (e.g., tomato sauce or Villeroi sauce); slices of cucumber pickle

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fish Timbale Decorated with Slices of Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare quenelle forcemeat according to your recipe.
Shape the forcemeat into rings or molds and poach in salted water without boiling for five minutes.
Remove from molds and let cool on an inverted pan.
Once cool, cover each timbale with sauce and let it harden.
Sprinkle with bread crumbs, moisten with egg, and cover with fresh crumbs before frying.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + cucumbertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together344 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sauce + cucumbertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,174 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,934 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + cucumbertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,346 recipes

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