Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Sea-bream, Baked
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Wash the bream thoroughly without removing the scales.
Wipe away all moisture with a dry cloth.
Season the bream with salt, pepper, and cayenne.
Bake
Place the bream in a baking dish and cover with butter.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 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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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bream
- Forms the main body of the dish, and its flesh turns flaky as it cooks through.
- Butter
- Adds moisture and richness, and helps the fish brown and stay tender in the oven.
The step that matters
Wipe away all moisture with a dry cloth.. Surface water steams the skin instead of letting it brown, and seasoning clings better to dry fish. Patting it dry first helps the skin crisp and the seasoning stick.
“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.
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