Name: Stuffing for Baked Fish
Ingredients: 1 cup soft bread crumbs; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; ⅛ teaspoon white pepper; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; 1 teaspoon chopped onion (scalded); 4 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon chopped pickle; milk or egg to moisten

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffing for Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the soft bread crumbs, salt, parsley, white pepper, lemon juice, scalded onion, butter, and chopped pickle, then mix well until combined.
Add milk or egg gradually to moisten the mixture to your desired consistency.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft bread crumbs: Form the bulk of the stuffing and absorb moisture from the liquid added.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, coating the crumbs and carrying flavor through the stuffing.
Milk or egg: Moistens the crumbs; egg can also help bind the mixture together.

Swap the white pepper

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

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Celeryfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, lemon, onion, butter, milk. 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.