Name: Haddock Filleted and Steamed
Ingredients: Haddock fillets; Pepper; Coarse sea salt; Butter or oil for greasing

Why it works: Haddock and butter work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 764 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddock Filleted and Steamed

Ingredients

Haddock fillets
Pepper
Coarse sea salt
Butter or oil for greasing

Directions

Season the haddock fillets with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Bring a saucepan of water to a boil.
Grease a plate and place it on top of the boiling water.
Arrange the fillets on the greased plate and cover with a small basin.
Steam for about 30 minutes.

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.

Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together764 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).
Haddock + peppertop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together696 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).