Why it works: Fish and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,889 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pan Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Place the fish in a thick-bottom frying pan with heads facing the same direction.
Fill the spaces with smaller fish.
Fry until the fish are brown and ready to turn.
Cover the fish with a dinner plate, drain off the fat, then invert the pan to place the fish on the plate.
Return the lard to the pan, heat it, and slip the fish back in.
Fry the other side until brown, drain, and turn onto a plate as before.
Transfer the fish to a warm platter and garnish with lemon slices.
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 + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,889 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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