Name: Pish Rissoles
Ingredients: puff pastry; fish forcemeat; clarified butter; fried parsley

Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pish Rissoles

Ingredients

puff pastry
fish forcemeat
clarified butter
fried parsley

Directions

Roll out the puff pastry very thin.
Cut rounds using a 3-inch fluted cutter.
Place a small piece of fish forcemeat on each round.
Fold each round in half, moistening the edges to seal.
Heat clarified butter in a frying pan.
Fry the rissoles until golden brown.
Drain and serve on a folded napkin, garnished with fried parsley.

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.

Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).