Name: Stuffed Plaice
Ingredients: 1 thick plaice; veal stuffing; butter; brown sauce or tomato sauce or anchovy sauce; parsley; lemon

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 ↓

Stuffed Plaice

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

Remove the black skin, head, fins, and tail from the plaice.
Cut the flesh down the center of the skinned side and loosen the fillets.
Place a little veal stuffing under the fillets.

Bake and serve

Lay the fish in a buttered baking dish and cover with greased paper.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.
Serve covered with brown, tomato, or anchovy sauce, and garnish with parsley and sliced lemon.

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).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Plaice: Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into tender, flaky fillets.
Veal stuffing: Adds moisture and savory flavor beneath the fillets as the fish bakes.
Butter: Enriches the dish and keeps the fish from sticking to the baking dish.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.