Name: Godiveau, or Quenelles of Fish
Ingredients: ½ pound raw fish, bones removed; ½ pound bread crumbs; ½ cup milk; ½ pound butter; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 3 egg yolks; 2 egg whites, whipped to stiff peaks; parsley (optional)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Godiveau, or Quenelles of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the raw fish and pound it in a mortar.
Soak the bread crumbs in milk for a few minutes, then press out the milk using a clean piece of muslin.
Combine the fish, bread crumbs, and butter in the mortar.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then mix well.
Add the yolks of three eggs and the whipped egg whites, mixing until combined.
If using for stuffing fish, add a little parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, milk, butter, pepper, egg):

Parsleythe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Cinnamonfits less well
Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, milk, butter, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.