Name: Fish Fritters
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon cooked fish or boiled prawns; ½ ounce butter; 1 fillet anchovy or a few drops anchovy sauce; a little fish broth; coarse sea salt; hot fat for frying; crisply fried parsley for serving

Why it works: Fish and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 637 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fish Fritters

Ingredients

1 tablespoon cooked fish or boiled prawns
½ ounce butter
1 fillet anchovy or a few drops anchovy sauce
a little fish broth
coarse sea salt
hot fat for frying
crisply fried parsley for serving

Directions

Pound the fish or prawns in a mortar with butter, anchovy, and fish broth until smooth.
Incorporate the mixture with the batter until well combined.
Drop dessertspoonfuls of the mixture into very hot fat.
Fry until golden and crisp, then drain on paper towels.
Dust with salt and serve on a napkin with fried parsley.

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.

Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together637 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,702 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).