Name: Whiting Broiled
Ingredients: whiting fish; oil; chives, chopped; parsley, chopped; shallots, chopped; coarse sea salt; black pepper; melted butter or white sauce with capers

Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Whiting Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the whiting fish and steep them in oil, chives, parsley, shallots, salt, and pepper for 2 hours, basting occasionally.
Broil the fish over a hot fire, moistening with the steeping oil.
Serve with melted butter or a white sauce with capers.

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.

Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together450 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,150 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Chive + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,885 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).