Name: Fish Pudding
Ingredients: potatoes; white fish; butter or dripping; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

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.

Prepare the potatoes

Peel the potatoes, removing any eyes or spots.
Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them smoothly.

Make the fish mixture

Cut the white fish into small pieces and mash it with butter or dripping until smooth.
Combine the mashed fish with the mashed potatoes in a 1:2 ratio (one-third potatoes to two-thirds fish).
Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Bake and serve

Transfer the mixture to a shallow dish, creating a border around the edge.
Smooth the top and score it across for easier serving.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown.

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.

Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + fishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,948 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Mashed potatoes give the pudding its soft, smooth body and bulk.
White fish: Provides the main flavour and the tender, flaky protein structure of the pudding.
Butter or dripping: Adds fat that enriches the mashed fish and keeps it moist and smooth.