Name: Fried Eels
Ingredients: eels; wheat flour or rolled cracker; lard or beef dripping; coarse sea salt; parsley

Why it works: Wheat and beef work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 319 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Fried Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the eels thoroughly and cut them into 2-inch pieces.
Wash and dry the pieces.
Roll the eels in wheat flour or rolled cracker.
Fry in hot lard or beef dripping, seasoned with salt, until browned and cooked through.
Serve with crisped 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.

Wheat + beeftop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together319 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Wheat + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,866 recipes

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