Name: Boiled Grouper, Caper Sauce
Ingredients: 1 whole grouper; salt; water; 1 tablespoon vinegar; caper sauce; Hollandaise potatoes for garnish

Why it works: Grouper and sauce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Grouper, Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grouper by cleaning and scaling it.
In a pot, bring salted water and vinegar to a boil.
Add the grouper and simmer for about 40 minutes.
Once cooked, remove the fish and drain it.
Serve the grouper with caper sauce and garnish with Hollandaise potatoes.

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.

Grouper + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together12 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Vinegar + potatotop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,608 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sauce + potatotop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,073 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Vinegar + saucetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,844 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Grouper + potatotop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).