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Mackerel with Smoked Beetroot, Horseradish Crème Fraîche, and Soda Bread

Smoke your own beetroot for this stunning starter, serving it with fresh mackerel fillets and homemade soda bread.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 209 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep1 hr
Cook2 hr

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beetroot + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tea + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together196 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tea + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + buttermilktop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beetroot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together503 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, tea, rice, sugar, flour, buttermilk, horseradish):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Orangeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Raisinabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Vanillaabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, tea, rice, sugar, flour, buttermilk, horseradish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).