Name: To Bake Fish
Ingredients: fish fillets; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; lemon juice; plain melted butter sauce or parsley sauce (optional)

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Bake Fish

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.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Fillet the fish if possible and place it on a buttered baking tray.
Sprinkle with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little lemon juice.
Cover with buttered parchment paper and bake for 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.
Remove the paper and transfer the fish to a hot serving dish.
If desired, pour plain melted butter sauce or parsley sauce over the fish.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,889 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,948 recipes

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