Name: The Brill
Ingredients: 1 large brill; ½ cup coarse sea salt; 1 gallon water; curled parsley for garnish; slices of lemon for garnish; lobster sauce, shrimp sauce, or melted butter for serving

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The Brill

Ingredients

1 large brill
½ cup coarse sea salt
1 gallon water
curled parsley for garnish
slices of lemon for garnish
lobster sauce, shrimp sauce, or melted butter for serving

Directions

Prepare

Prepare the brill as you would a turbot.
In a fish kettle, combine water and salt.
Bring the water to a boil, then add the brill.

Cook and serve

Simmer for about 45 minutes, adjusting time based on the size of the fish.
Serve the fish in a neatly folded napkin, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.
Offer lobster sauce, shrimp sauce, or melted butter in a tureen.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + lobstertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together890 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lemon + lobstertop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,100 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Brill: Is the main fish, cooked gently in simmering water until it turns flaky and tender.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the poaching water so the fish is lightly flavoured as it cooks.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.