Name: Spiced Fish
Ingredients: cold fresh fish; hot vinegar; a few cloves; allspice

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Fish

Ingredients

cold fresh fish
hot vinegar
a few cloves
allspice

Directions

Remove all bones and bits of skin from the fish.
Place the fish in a deep dish.
Barely cover the fish with hot vinegar infused with cloves and allspice.
Let it cool; it's ready to use once cold.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fish + clovetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together615 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,036 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).