Name: Potted Fish
Ingredients: fish, cut into small pieces; coarse sea salt; whole pepper; allspice; cider vinegar; flour (for stiff paste)

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 ↓

Potted Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Place the fish pieces in a stone jar.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, whole pepper, and allspice.
Cover the fish with cider vinegar.
Make a stiff paste with flour and cover the jar.
Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for three to four hours.
Store tightly covered in a cool place for up to six weeks.

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.

Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,302 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Allspice + cidertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together873 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, cider, vinegar, flour):

Tarragonfits about as well
Turmericfits about as well
Allspicethe original
Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, cider, vinegar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.