Name: Cold Fish
Ingredients: Cold fish (soles, cod, whitings, smelts); Cold oyster, lobster, or shrimp sauce; Bread crumbs

Why it works: Whiting and smelt share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cold Fish

Ingredients

Cold fish (soles, cod, whitings, smelts)
Cold oyster, lobster, or shrimp sauce
Bread crumbs

Directions

Cut the cold fish into pieces.
Place the fish in escallop shells.
Top with cold oyster, lobster, or shrimp sauce.
Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top.
Put the shells in a Dutch oven and brown them.

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.

Whiting + smelttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,545 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Fish + whitingtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together317 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).