Name: Larded Fish
Ingredients: 1 whole fish; lardoons (small strips of fat); brown mushroom sauce; buttered paper

Why it works: Fish and mushroom work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 444 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Larded Fish

Ingredients

1 whole fish
lardoons (small strips of fat)
brown mushroom sauce
buttered paper

Directions

Remove a large piece of skin from the back of the fish.
Insert lardoons into the fish as directed in the recipe for Xaxdxng/ricandeaux of veal.
Stuff the fish if desired.
Cover the lardoons with buttered paper until the fish is nearly done.
Remove the paper to allow the lardoons to brown.
Serve the larded fish hot with brown mushroom 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.

Fish + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together444 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).