Why it works: Fish and lime work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 46 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Boiled Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Put the cleaned fish in boiling water.
Add red chillies, salt, and lime juice to taste.
Boil the fish until fully cooked.
Remove the fish from the water and keep warm until serving.
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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Fish + limetop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together46 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
- Red chillies
- Add heat and a sharp, aromatic flavour to the cooking water.
- Lime juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish.
The step that matters
Boil the fish until fully cooked. Fish proteins set quickly and turn dry and rubbery if overcooked, yet undercooked fish is unsafe to eat. The flesh should turn opaque and flake easily with a fork.
“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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