Why it works: Fish and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,487 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Boiled Fish
Ingredients
Directions
If you don't have a fish kettle, wrap the fish in a stout piece of white cloth.
Simmer the fish gently; do not boil hard.
Serve the fish with egg sauce.
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.
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Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,487 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,782 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,895 recipes
Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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