Name: Baked Fish
Ingredients: 1 cup cream or milk; 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; Canned salmon or any cold boiled fish; Cracker crumbs (optional)

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Remove bones from the cold boiled fish or canned salmon.

Assemble and bake

In a bowl, mix the cream or milk with flour, butter, pepper, and salt.
Pour the mixture over the fish.
Dot the top with small bits of butter.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle with cracker crumbs before serving, if desired.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + salmontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + salmontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cream or milk: Forms the moist, creamy sauce that coats the fish as it bakes.
All-purpose flour: Thickens the cream or milk into a sauce that holds the fish together.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and browns the top as it bakes.
Cold boiled fish or canned salmon: Provides the main protein and flavor of the dish.

“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.