Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Fish Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Remove the skin and bones from the fish.
Layer the fish in a dish, seasoning each layer with equal amounts of pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, and allspice.
Save some of the liquor the fish was boiled in, and boil the skin and bones in it for 15 minutes.
Strain the liquid through a sieve and let it settle, then pour it over the fish in the dish.
Cover the dish with puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
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.
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Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,948 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Fish + macetop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together586 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, allspice):
- Clovefits better
- Thymefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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