Name: Plain Kedgeree
Ingredients: 1 lb cold white or salt fish; 1 oz margarine; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 lb boiled rice; Chopped parsley to taste; Little cold sauce (or raw egg and chopped hard-boiled egg if desired)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Kedgeree

Ingredients

1 lb cold white or salt fish
1 oz margarine
Salt and pepper to taste
1 lb boiled rice
Chopped parsley to taste
Little cold sauce (or raw egg and chopped hard-boiled egg if desired)

Directions

Prepare

Flake the fish.
Melt the margarine in a large pan.

Cook and serve

Add the flaked fish, boiled rice, sauce, and seasoning.
Stir until very hot.
Serve in a pile on a hot dish and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,762 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together270 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold white or salt fish: Forms the main body of the dish, giving it flaky texture and savoury flavour.
Boiled rice: Provides bulk and a soft, absorbent base that carries the other flavours.
Margarine: Adds fat for richness and helps the mixture feel moist and coat the rice.