Name: Fish Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb white fish or cold boiled fish; ½ lb breadcrumbs; 1 tablespoon anchovy sauce; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 2 eggs; ½ lb suet; ½ cup fish cooking liquid or milk

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the flesh from the bones of the fish and flake it if using cold fish.
Combine the fish, breadcrumbs, and finely chopped suet in a bowl.
Add the anchovy sauce, cayenne, and the cooking liquid or milk. Mix well and transfer to a buttered dish.

Steam

Steam for 1 hour.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together637 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).