Name: Boiled Fish
Ingredients: 1 quart water; 1 sliced lemon; ⅓ cup vinegar; 1 tablespoon cloves; 1 large onion, sliced; 2 tablespoons whole pepper; 1 pint cream; 4 egg yolks; parsley for garnish

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

In a large pot, combine water, lemon, vinegar, cloves, onion, and whole pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer slowly.
In a double boiler, whisk together cream and egg yolks. Cook until thickened.
Remove from heat and stir in enough of the boiling liquid to create a smooth gravy.
Place the boiled fish on a platter, pour the dressing over it, and garnish with parsley and sliced lemon.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,768 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, vinegar, clove, pepper, cream, egg, parsley):

Shallotfits better
Spinachfits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, vinegar, clove, pepper, cream, egg, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.