Name: A Remarkably Fine Fish Pie
Ingredients: 2 pounds small eels; 1 slice onion; 1/4 teaspoon mace; 1/4 teaspoon pepper; 1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt; Forcemeat: flesh of eels, 1 anchovy, parsley, lemon peel, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 1 cup breadcrumbs, 4 ounces butter; flesh of soles, small cod, or dressed turbot

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Remarkably Fine Fish Pie

Ingredients

2 pounds small eels
1 slice onion
1/4 teaspoon mace
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
Forcemeat: flesh of eels, 1 anchovy, parsley, lemon peel, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 1 cup breadcrumbs, 4 ounces butter
flesh of soles, small cod, or dressed turbot

Directions

Boil the eels after cutting the fins close. Pick the flesh off and add the bones to the boiling water with mace, pepper, salt, and onion. Boil until rich and strain.
Make forcemeat by mixing the eel flesh, anchovy, parsley, lemon peel, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, and warmed butter. Spread this mixture at the bottom of a dish.
Layer the fish (soles, cod, or turbot) on top of the forcemeat, seasoned with salt and pepper. Pour the strained gravy over the fish and bake.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Anchovy + turbottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together110 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, anchovy, parsley, lemon, butter, turbot):

Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Garlicfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, anchovy, parsley, lemon, butter, turbot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.