Name: Tinned Fish
Ingredients: tinned fish (such as salmon or herring); tartar sauce or mayonnaise; garnishes (such as olives, capers, sliced gherkins, rolled anchovies)

Why it works: Olive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tinned Fish

Ingredients

tinned fish (such as salmon or herring)
tartar sauce or mayonnaise
garnishes (such as olives, capers, sliced gherkins, rolled anchovies)

Directions

Carefully drain the tinned fish on a sieve to remove excess oil.
Select nicely sized pieces of fish and place them on a serving dish.
Add any desired garnishes around the fish.
Serve the tartar sauce or mayonnaise separately in a boat, as cold as possible.
For a hot dish, gently warm the fish in a good matelote sauce or wrap in oiled paper and broil or fry for a couple of minutes.
Serve with a domestic hollandaise sauce if desired.

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.

Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,688 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + caperstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Fish + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).