Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,609 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Also mentioned in the method: fish
Directions
Fry the diced salt pork with the chopped onions until cooked but not burned.
Pour in the milk and stir carefully to scald it in the fat.
Add enough bread crumbs to make the mixture stiff.
Season with salt, pepper, and marjoram.
Stir in the beaten egg and use this mixture to stuff the fish.
Lay narrow strips of pork over the fish to create a base for the gravy.
For the gravy, combine water with brown flour to thicken and season with catsup.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pepper + marjoramtop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Milk + breadtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together11,363 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Pork + oniontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together18,199 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + milktop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,383 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Pork + breadtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,342 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, milk, bread, pepper, marjoram, egg, flour):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, milk, bread, pepper, marjoram, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
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