Name: Broiling Fish
Ingredients: 1 whole fish, cleaned; Vinegar; Flour; Coarse sea salt; Fresh suet

Why it works: Fish and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,036 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

Broiling Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the fish with vinegar to prevent the skin from breaking.
Flour the fish lightly.
Preheat a clean, hot gridiron and rub the bars with fresh suet.
Place the fish on the gridiron and cook without stirring the fire.
Use gridiron tongs to turn the fish carefully.
Sprinkle a little salt over the fire to reduce smoke.

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 + vinegartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,036 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Vinegar + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,652 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).