Name: Broiled Fish Cutlets
Ingredients: Good cut of seer fish; Salad oil; 1 minced shallot; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 1 clove garlic; Whole peppercorns; Lime peel

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Broiled Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Divide the fish into cutlets.
Parboil the cutlets in the morning.
Marinate the cutlets all day in salad oil, minced shallot, parsley, vinegar, garlic, whole peppercorns, and lime peel.
Remove the cutlets from the marinade and wrap them with the shallot and other ingredients.

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.

Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together547 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, shallot, parsley, vinegar, garlic, lime):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, shallot, parsley, vinegar, garlic, lime. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.