Name: Whiting, Fried
Ingredients: whiting; 2 oz panada (about ½ cup); 1 oz butter (about 2 tablespoons); 1 tablespoon well-reduced cold béchamel sauce; 1 whole egg; 1 tablespoon cream; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; a little grated nutmeg

Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whiting, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Pound the whiting in a mortar with the panada and butter.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve into a basin.
Gradually work in the béchamel sauce, whole egg, and cream.
Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.
Test the mixture; if not firm enough, add another egg yolk or a little panada.

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.

Whiting + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together236 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Whiting + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, butter, sauce, egg, cream, pepper):

Parsleyfits about as well
Capersfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, butter, sauce, egg, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.