Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Soak the cod slices in warm water for 30 minutes or scald them in hot water until cleaned.
Remove the dirty skin and boil the cod in equal parts of milk and water until tender.
Place the cod in a baking dish and cover with second stock and essence of anchovies.
Thicken the stock and strain it through a tammy.
Pour the sauce over the fish and season with cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice.
If desired, add capers or for maitred'hotel, stir in cream and parsley.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,036 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together34,118 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Capers + parsleytop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,550 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Lemon + caperstop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,222 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the capers
The recipe marks capers as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, cream, parsley):
- Marjorambetter flavor fit
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Capersthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, cream, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
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IllustrationThe Sunday pairing: one pairing, the chemistry behind it, and how to cook it. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
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