Name: Fresh Fish Balls
Ingredients: remains of a fish; coarse sea salt; mashed potatoes; beaten egg; boiled rice (optional)

Why it works: Potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Fresh Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Remove skin and bones from the fish and break it into fine flakes.
Season the fish well and set aside overnight.
The next morning, mix the fish with an equal amount of mashed and seasoned potatoes.
Form the mixture into cakes or balls.
For a variation, substitute boiled rice for the potatoes and bind with beaten egg.

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.

Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together851 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together270 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,782 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,350 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).