Name: To Fry Brook Trout or Other Small Fish
Ingredients: small fish (like brook trout); coarse sea salt; black pepper; cornmeal; butter; lard

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 ↓

To Fry Brook Trout or Other Small Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Clean and wash the fish, then wrap them in a clean, dry towel for a few minutes.
Ensure the fish are perfectly dry inside and out.
Season the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then roll them in cornmeal.
Heat a mixture of butter and lard in a pan until boiling.
Fry the fish in the hot fat until golden brown.
Drain the fish on a sieve or coarse brown paper and serve hot on a folded napkin.

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).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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