Name: Merlans Aux Fines Herbes
Ingredients: whitings; fresh herbs (such as parsley, chives, and tarragon); butter; salt; pepper

Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Merlans Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the whitings and remove the insides.
Season the fish with salt and pepper.
Melt butter in a pan over medium heat.
Add the whitings and cook until golden brown on both sides.
Sprinkle with fresh herbs before serving.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together589 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,150 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, parsley, tarragon, butter, pepper):

Shallotfits better
Chivethe original
Carrotfits about as well
Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, parsley, tarragon, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.