Name: Delicious Brandades De Merluche, or Languedoc Ragout of Salt-Fish
Ingredients: salted cod; pickled herrings; butter; onions; milk; potatoes; garlic; parsley; black pepper

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Delicious Brandades De Merluche, or Languedoc Ragout of Salt-Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the salted cod in water overnight to remove excess salt.
Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them.
In a pan, melt butter and sauté chopped onions and garlic until soft.
Add the soaked cod and pickled herrings to the pan, cooking until heated through.
Stir in the mashed potatoes, milk, and chopped parsley.
Season with black pepper to taste and serve hot.

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,517 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, potato, garlic, parsley, pepper):

Chivefits about as well
Carrotfits about as well
Onionthe original
Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, potato, garlic, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.