Name: Fish Scalloped
Ingredients: fish, flaked; bread crumbs; thin melted butter or cream; ketchup; butter

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 Scalloped

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.

Flake the fish and mix it with bread crumbs moistened with thin melted butter or cream.
Add a small amount of ketchup for flavor.
Cover the top thickly with more bread crumbs.
Dot the top with bits of butter.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.

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).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + ketchuptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together813 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,784 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).