Name: Baked Whitefish
Ingredients: 1 whole whitefish, thawed; 2 tablespoons butter; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; optional: wine for flavor

Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Baked Whitefish

Ingredients

Directions

Thaw the whitefish in a large pan of cold water until completely thawed.
Scale the fish and cut it from the bone by making a lengthwise cut down to the bone.
Cut around under the head to the bone, then lay the knife flat against the bone and cut to remove the fillet.
Repeat on the other side to remove the second fillet.
Season the fish with butter, pepper, and salt before baking.

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.

Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pepper + winetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,066 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Whitefish + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Whitefish + peppertop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together97 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).