Name: Fish and Oyster Pie
Ingredients: Any remains of cold fish (such as cod or haddock); 2 dozen oysters; Pepper to taste; Salt to taste; Bread crumbs (sufficient for the quantity of fish); ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg; 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish and Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Any remains of cold fish (such as cod or haddock)
2 dozen oysters
Pepper to taste
Salt to taste
Bread crumbs (sufficient for the quantity of fish)
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley

Directions

Remove bones from the cold fish and place a layer in a pie dish.
Sprinkle the fish with pepper and salt.
Add a layer of bread crumbs on top of the fish.
Repeat layers as needed, finishing with bread crumbs.
Sprinkle grated nutmeg and chopped parsley over the top.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, oyster, pepper, bread, parsley):

Marjoramfits better
Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, oyster, pepper, bread, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.