Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Baked Hake
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the fish in salt and water.
Rub it with vinegar and let it sit for 1 hour.
Roll the fish in a cloth and let it dry.
Sift stale bread through a wire sieve.
Mix bread crumbs with pepper, salt, nutmeg, herbs, and lemon rind.
Brush the fish with beaten egg and sprinkle half the crumbs over it.
Place the fish in a deep baking dish on a drainer.
Pour 1 cup of water and ⅓ cup of vinegar around the fish.
Add minced shallot and carrot or onions.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,019 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,523 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the carrot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, bread, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, egg, shallot):
- Spinachfits better
- Chivefits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Carrotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, bread, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, egg, shallot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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