Name: Salted Herrings
Ingredients: salted herrings; cold milk; minced onions; preserved gherkins; whole capers; oil; vinegar

Why it works: Onion and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,381 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salted Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the salted herrings and soak them in cold milk for 3-4 hours.
Drain the herrings and remove the heads.
Cut the body into thick pieces and arrange them on a dish.
Surround the pieces with minced onions, sliced gherkins, and whole capers.
Baste the dish with oil and vinegar, then serve.

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.

Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,381 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Capers + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,453 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,418 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Milk + vinegartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,949 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).