Name: Pickled Fish
Ingredients: Mackerel, herrings, or sprats; chopped onion; thyme; black peppercorns; coarse sea salt; vinegar

Why it works: Onion and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,171 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pickled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the fish in an earthen pot.
Between each layer, add chopped onion, thyme, black peppercorns, and a little coarse sea salt.
Pour in enough vinegar to nearly cover the fish.
Seal the pot and take it to the baker's to pickle.

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.

Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Thyme + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,305 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).