Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Broiled Shad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash, drain, and wipe the shad dry.
Sprinkle the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Broil and serve
Place the shad on a gridiron and broil over red-hot coals.
When the inside is a nice brown, turn the fish for one minute on the other side.
Place the broiled shad on a hot platter and dress with butter.
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.
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shad
- Is the main protein, cooked whole so the flesh firms and flakes over direct heat.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the finished fish as it melts over the hot flesh.
The step that matters
Turning the fish. Turn it only once the inside has browned, so the flesh is cooked through and the skin is not torn. One minute on the second side finishes the cooking without drying the fish out over the coals.
“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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