Name: To Boil Fresh Fish
Ingredients: fresh fish; pepper; coarse sea salt; eggs; drawn butter; parsley; walnut catsup; mushroom catsup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Boil Fresh Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the fish well and rub it with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Wrap the fish in a towel and drop it into boiling water.
Keep the water boiling rapidly.
Boil a large fish for 45 minutes and a small fish for less time.
Once done, place the fish on a dish and dress it with eggs, drawn butter, and parsley.
Serve with walnut and mushroom catsup.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together865 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, egg, butter, parsley, mushroom):

Walnutthe original
Peasfits about as well
Beansfits about as well
Chickpeafits less well

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