Name: Dressed Fish
Ingredients: Perch or Flounders; Fish liquor (enough to cover the fish); 4 Parsley plants, roots and leaves; 1 teaspoon Horse-radish; 1 teaspoon Shalot Wine; 1 teaspoon Cayenne Sauce; 1 teaspoon Walnut Ketchup; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dressed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the fish slowly in enough fish liquor to cover them, along with the parsley, horseradish, and sauces.
When the fish are done, place them in a deep dish.
Strain the fish liquor over the fish and serve.
Add more fish liquor if there isn't enough to cover the fish.

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.

Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Parsley + radishtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together120 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together865 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Radish + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together46 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Perch or flounders: The main fish, which becomes tender and flaky as it stews gently in the liquor.
Fish liquor: Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the fish moist and carries the flavour of the dish.
Horse-radish: Adds a sharp, pungent bite that cuts through the richness of the fish.
Walnut ketchup: Adds deep savoury flavour and a touch of acidity to the stewing liquor.

The step that matters

Stew the fish slowly. Gentle heat keeps the delicate fish flesh tender and intact. Rapid boiling toughens the protein and breaks the fish apart.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, parsley, horse, radish, wine, sauce, ketchup):

Beansfits better
Walnutthe original
Chestnutfits less well
Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, horse, radish, wine, sauce, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.