Name: Fish Pies
Ingredients: dressed codfish; cold oyster sauce; black pepper; coarse sea salt; nutmeg; bread crumbs; fresh butter; optional: sounds (small fish), soaked and boiled tender

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Spread a little cold oyster sauce at the bottom of a pie dish.
Layer flakes of codfish and small pieces of liver, seasoning each layer with black pepper, coarse sea salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full.
Top with bread crumbs and bits of fresh butter.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, sauce, pepper, bread, butter, fish):

Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
Tarragonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, sauce, pepper, bread, butter, fish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.