Why it works: Onion and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Trout, Stewed
Ingredients
Directions
Ensure the trout is fresh and cleaned.
Cut away any excess fat.
Boil the trout in equal parts milk and water for 30 minutes.
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.
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Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,474 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Onion + milktop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,418 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Sauce + milktop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, milk):
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits better
- Potatofits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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