Name: To Boil a Brill
Ingredients: 1 brill; lobster coral (passed through a fine sieve); lobster sauce; plain melted butter

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil a Brill

Ingredients

1 brill
lobster coral (passed through a fine sieve)
lobster sauce
plain melted butter

Directions

Boil the brill as you would a turbot.
Once dished, sprinkle the lobster coral over the brill.
Serve with lobster sauce and plain melted butter.

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.

Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

What each ingredient does

Brill: The main fish, cooked whole by gentle boiling so its flesh turns moist and flaky.
Lobster coral: Adds a rich, briny flavour and a bright red colour to the finished fish.
Plain melted butter: Adds fat and richness, softening the mild flavour of the boiled fish.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.