Name: Fish Boiled
Ingredients: fish (such as turbot, perch, bream, bass, carp, soles, or salmon); red wine; fresh butter; fried oysters (optional)

Why it works: Fish and oyster work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 496 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Boiled

Ingredients

fish (such as turbot, perch, bream, bass, carp, soles, or salmon)
red wine
fresh butter
fried oysters (optional)

Directions

Fill a pot with water and add red wine if serving cold.
Bring the water to a boil.
Add the fish and cook until done.
For a hot dish, garnish with fried oysters or seasoned fish tossed in fresh butter.
For a cold dish, serve with a cold sauce of oil separately.

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 + oystertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Red wine + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,599 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Fish + red winetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together99 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).