Name: Fish Force Meat Balls
Ingredients: uncooked fish, chopped fine; raw salt pork, chopped fine; 1 or 2 raw eggs; a few crumbs of bread; pepper; spices; catsup (optional)

Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fish Force Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the uncooked fish and raw salt pork finely.
In a bowl, mix the fish, salt pork, raw eggs, bread crumbs, pepper, and spices.
Add catsup if desired.
Form the mixture into small balls.
Fry the balls in hot oil until 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.

Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together668 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).