Name: To Steam Fish
Ingredients: 1 fish (whiting, sole, or haddock); 1 teaspoon lemon juice; Pepper to taste; Salt to taste; A little butter

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Steam Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Fillet the fish if possible.
Butter a soup plate lightly and place the fish on it.
Sprinkle the fish with lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

Steam

Cover the fish with a buttered paper and place a lid or another plate on top.
Place the soup plate on a saucepan half-filled with boiling water.
Steam the fish for about 10-15 minutes.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,889 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,948 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).