Name: How to Stew Fish
Ingredients: 1 fish (carp, pike, or hake); ½ cup bread (for stuffing); 2 onions, fried; 1 cup gravy; ½ cup wine (optional); pickled mushrooms (optional); oysters (optional); lemon slices (for garnish)

Why it works: Wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,632 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol, which smells allspice, anise. The science ↓

How to Stew Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish by cutting through the stitches and opening the belly to remove the bread.
Place the fish in a stewpan.
Add the fried onions and gravy over the fish.
If desired, add wine, pickled mushrooms, and oysters to enrich the gravy.
Garnish with lemon slices and serve.

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.

Wine + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,632 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).
Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, onion, wine, mushroom, oyster):

Plumfits about as well
Grapefits about as well
Lemonthe original
Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, onion, wine, mushroom, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.