Name: Filleted Turbot
Ingredients: 2 fillets of turbot; 1 slice of butter; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; pepper; salt

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Filleted Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the fillets into neat pieces about the size of two fingers.
Dry the pieces and season with pepper and salt.
Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the fillets side by side.
Cook over medium heat for a few minutes, turning them when half cooked.
Cook for about 10 minutes total.
Drain on kitchen paper and arrange in a circle on a dish.
Pour shrimp sauce over the fillets and garnish with fried parsley in the center.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Turbot + lemontop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together273 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).