Name: Fried White-bait
Ingredients: whitebait fish; milk; flour; bread crumbs; olive oil or clarified drippings; coarse sea salt; Tartare sauce; brown bread

Why it works: Bread and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,091 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fried White-bait

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the fish in a colander under running water.
Drain well and soak in milk for 30 minutes.
Drain and wipe the fish dry.
Dredge the fish in flour and roll in bread crumbs.
Chill in the refrigerator until ready to fry.
Heat olive oil or clarified drippings in a deep pan.
Fry a handful of fish at a time until they rise, about 1 minute.
Keep the fried fish warm while frying the rest.
Once all are fried, heat the fat very hot.
Plunge all the fish in the hot fat for 1-2 minutes.
Remove, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and serve hot with Tartare sauce and brown bread.

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.

Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Fish + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).