Name: Eel Patties
Ingredients: middle-sized eels; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 1 blade of mace; a little lemon peel; 1 sprig of parsley; butter; flour; lemon juice or vinegar

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Eel Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Skin and wash the eels, then cut them into 1-inch pieces.
Soak the pieces in salt water for 1 hour.
Drain and place them in a stewpan with enough hot water to cover.
Add salt, pepper, mace, lemon peel, and parsley.
Gently stew for 8-10 minutes until the fish separates from the bone.
Divide each piece into two and set aside.
Continue stewing the broth a little longer, then remove the lemon peel and mace.
Thicken the broth with butter and flour, then flavor with lemon juice or vinegar.
Return the pieces of eel to the broth.
Make patties as directed for mutton patties.
Bake the crust for 15 minutes.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, parsley, butter, flour):

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Tarragonfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, parsley, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.