Name: Fried White Fish
Ingredients: white fish, cut into portions; cracker crumbs or corn meal; good quality frying fat; tomato sauce

Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried White Fish

Ingredients

white fish, cut into portions
cracker crumbs or corn meal
good quality frying fat
tomato sauce

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roll the fish portions in cracker crumbs or corn meal.
Fry in hot fat (about 400°F or 200°C) until cooked through.
Serve with tomato sauce.

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.

Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + tomatotop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hepten-3-one (metal).
Fish + corntop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together70 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).