Name: To Bake
Ingredients: white fish, cut into 2-inch squares; ½ cup flour; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 1 pinch thyme; 1 bay leaf; 1 pint stewed tomatoes; 1 sliced lemon; a few bits of butter substitute

Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Bake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Sprinkle a pan with flour, salt, and pepper.

Bake

Lay the fish in the pan and sprinkle again with salt, pepper, thyme, and bay leaf.
Pour the stewed tomatoes and sliced lemon over the fish.
Add bits of butter substitute on top.
Bake for 20 minutes.

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.

Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,973 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White fish: Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven.
Flour: Dusted in the pan to lightly coat the fish and help thicken the juices.
Stewed tomatoes: Add moisture and acidity that keep the fish tender while baking.
Butter substitute: Adds fat that enriches the surface and promotes gentle browning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, pepper, thyme, lemon, butter):

Shallotfits better
Leekfits better
Arrowrootfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, pepper, thyme, lemon, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.