Name: Fish Au Gratin
Ingredients: 1 good cut of seer fish; ½ cup macaroni; 2 ripe tomatoes; Parmesan cheese; 1 tin black Leicestershire mushrooms; butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; ⅓ cup white wine (like Chablis, Hock, or Sauterne)

Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Fish Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Slice the fish into ½ inch thick portions.
Boil the macaroni until tender.
Slice the tomatoes and set aside.
Butter a pie dish and arrange the macaroni at the bottom.
Dust the macaroni with Parmesan cheese.
Layer the sliced tomatoes on top of the macaroni.
Place the fish portions on top, adding a piece of mushroom and a slice of tomato between each.
Pour the sauce blonde over the dish and sprinkle with more Parmesan.
Bake for about 15 minutes, adding a little white wine or gravy as needed.

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.

Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,765 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Parmesan cheese + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,199 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,719 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, parmesan cheese, mushroom, butter, pepper, white wine):

Tomatothe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parmesan cheese, mushroom, butter, pepper, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.