Name: Mock Fish-balls
Ingredients: 1 beaten egg; fine bread crumbs; fresh lettuce leaves; white gravy (made of almond nut or raw peanut milk, flavored with celery or onion)

Why it works: Lettuce and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 210 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Mock Fish-balls

Ingredients

1 beaten egg
fine bread crumbs
fresh lettuce leaves
white gravy (made of almond nut or raw peanut milk, flavored with celery or onion)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Coat the balls in the beaten egg, then roll them in fine bread crumbs.
Bake the balls in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until they are a nice brown.
Wash the fresh lettuce leaves and dry them carefully with a cloth.
Arrange the lettuce leaves on a plate and pile the baked balls on top.
For serving, place a lettuce leaf on an individual dish and add a ball on top.
Serve with a white gravy if desired.

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.

Lettuce + almondtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together210 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Bread + almondtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together858 recipes

Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).
Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,645 recipes

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