Name: Cod Sauce
Ingredients: 1 bunch parsley; 1 bunch chervil; 2 shallots, chopped; 2 cloves, minced; 1 bay leaf; a few mushrooms, chopped; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon flour; milk or cream, as needed

Why it works: Chervil and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 266 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cod Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine parsley, chervil, shallots, cloves, bay leaf, mushrooms, and butter.
Cook over low heat until softened.
Stir in flour and enough milk or cream to achieve a sauce-like consistency.
Add scalded, chopped parsley before serving.

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.

Chervil + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together266 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together774 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, chervil, shallot, mushroom, butter, flour, milk):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, chervil, shallot, mushroom, butter, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.