Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Fish in Egg Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the fish in water with ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.
Beat the egg yolks with a little cold milk.
Make the egg sauce
Pour the remaining milk into a saucepan and heat until boiling.
Add the beaten egg yolks to the boiling milk and cook in a double boiler until thickened.
Pour the egg sauce over the fish and serve.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Milk + fishtop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,432 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together1,889 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together88,785 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk into a smooth sauce as they cook and set.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the egg yolks thicken.
- Fish
- Provides the main protein that the sauce is served over.
The step that matters
Adding the beaten egg yolks to the boiling milk. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot milk too quickly. Cooking gently in a double boiler and stirring keeps the proteins setting smoothly, giving a thickened, even sauce.
“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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