Name: Stuffing for Fish
Ingredients: 4 cups bread crumbs; 1/16 teaspoon salt; White pepper to taste; Cayenne pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon onion juice; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; ½ teaspoon chopped pickle; ½ tablespoon melted butter

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 ↓

Stuffing for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the bread crumbs, salt, white pepper, cayenne pepper, onion juice, parsley, pickle, and melted butter, then mix the ingredients in the order given until well combined.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,451 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Forms the bulk of the stuffing and absorbs moisture and butter to hold its body.
Melted butter: Adds fat that coats the crumbs, adding richness and softening the texture.
Onion juice: Adds savory onion flavor in a small amount.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, onion, parsley, butter):

Thymefits better
Garlicfits better
Marjoramfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, onion, parsley, 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.