Name: Whitings Au Gratin
Ingredients: whitings (or similar fish); coarse sea salt; black pepper; fines herbes; butter

Why it works: Whiting and butter work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whitings Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Scrape the scales off the fish.
Score the fish closely along each side.
Season the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Lay a few spoonfuls of fines herbes on top of the fish.
Finish cooking as you would for soles au gratin.

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.

Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together510 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Whiting + peppertop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together374 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).