Name: Tamarind Fish
Ingredients: 4 salmon (25 pounds total); 4 pounds black tamarinds; ½ pound curry powder; 1 gallon vinegar; 1 pound mustard seed; ¼ peck coarse sea salt; 2 ounces allspice; 2 ounces long pepper; garlic (to taste)

Why it works: Mustard and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Tamarind Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Let the fried fish cool.
Place the fish in a jar and pour the liquor over it.
Allow the fish to marinate for 24 hours or until ready to eat.
Serve the fish with boiled rice.

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.

Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Tamarind + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together149 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,053 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the tamarind

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, vinegar, mustard, allspice, pepper, garlic):

Limefits better
Lemonfits about as well
Avocadofits about as well
Tamarindthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, mustard, allspice, pepper, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.