Name: Boiled Turbot
Ingredients: 1 turbot; fresh parsley; lemon; lobster sauce; tartare sauce; shrimp sauce; prawn sauce; white sauce

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Lay the turbot on a folded napkin or fish paper on a hot dish.
Garnish with a border of fresh parsley and slices or quarters of lemon.
Serve with lobster, tartare, shrimp, prawn, or white sauce.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together248 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + shrimptop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together403 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).