Name: Observations on Dressing Fish
Ingredients: fish; coarse sea salt; vinegar; egg; bread crumbs; lard or dripping; parsley; lemon; horseradish

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Observations on Dressing Fish

Ingredients

Directions

If the fish is not cleaned, clean it thoroughly.
Soak fresh water fish in strong saltwater to remove muddy smell.
For boiling, add salt and vinegar to cold water, then gently heat the fish.
For crimp fish, boil water, add fish, then cool with cold water and simmer.
For frying, dry the fish, coat with egg, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.
Heat lard or dripping until boiling, then fry the fish until light brown.
Garnish with raw or fried parsley, and serve with lemon and horseradish.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together562 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, egg, bread, parsley, lemon):

Shallotfits better
Asparagusfits about as well
Cucumberfits about as well
Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, egg, bread, parsley, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.