Name: Turbot En Maig Re
Ingredients: 1 pint water; coarse sea salt; garlic; onions; mixed sweet herbs; cloves; 2 cups milk

Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Turbot En Maig Re

Ingredients

Directions

In a stew pan, combine water, salt, garlic, onions, herbs, and cloves. Boil for 30 minutes over low heat.
Let the mixture settle, then strain it through a sieve.
Add twice as much milk as brine to the strained liquid.
Place the turbot in the milk over low heat and let it simmer until cooked.

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.

Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,901 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Clove + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,165 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,418 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).