Name: Broiled Finnan Haddie
Ingredients: thick fish; melted butter; coarse sea salt; pepper

Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Broiled Finnan Haddie

Ingredients

thick fish
melted butter
coarse sea salt
pepper

Directions

Select a thick fish and wipe it with a piece of cheese cloth wrung from cold water.
Brush the fish with melted butter.
Place the fish on a well-greased broiler and broil until both sides are browned.
Remove the fish to a dripping pan, cover with boiling water, and let stand in the oven or on the back of the range for 15 to 20 minutes.
Drain the fish and place it on a hot serving platter.
Spread with Maitre d'Hotel Butter and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

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.

Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,948 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).