Name: Fish Pies
Ingredients: 2 pounds eels; pepper; coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon dried sage; water; puff pastry; fresh butter

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the eels

Skin, gut, and wash the eels thoroughly.
Cut the eels into 1.5‑inch pieces and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and dried sage.

Assemble and bake

Place the eels in a dish and add enough water to just cover them.
Make a good puff pastry and cover the dish with it.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is golden, being careful not to burn it.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,312 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels: Provide the main protein, which turns tender and flaky when gently cooked under the pastry.
Puff pastry: Forms a crisp, flaky crust that seals in moisture and browns in the oven.
Dried sage: Adds an earthy, aromatic herb flavor that complements the rich fish.

The step that matters

Baking until the crust is golden without burning. Puff pastry browns quickly at 400°F because its butter-laminated layers caramelize and darken fast. Pulling it when golden keeps the crust crisp and flaky, while over-baking scorches the butter and sugars and makes it bitter.