Name: Modern Cookery
Ingredients: slices of bread; butter; potted fish or anchovy butter

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

slices of bread
butter
potted fish or anchovy butter

Directions

Prepare the fish by removing the fillets from either side of the backbone, keeping them flat.
Divide each fillet into two pieces.
Spread butter on slices of bread.
Place the fish fillets on the buttered bread to make simple sandwiches.
For a richer flavor, use potted fish or anchovy butter instead.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).