Name: Smoked Mackerel with Herb & Beet Couscous
Prep time: 20 min
Yield: Serves 2, plus enough for one lunchbox
Ingredients: 100g couscous; 1 tsp horseradish sauce; 150g pot 2% fat Greek yogurt; ½ cucumber , deseeded and cut into cubes; 20g pack dill , roughly chopped; 20g pack mint , roughly chopped; small red onion , finely chopped; juice 1 lemon; 1 tbsp olive oil; 250g pack cooked beetroot , cut into cubes; 250g pack peppered smoked mackerel fillets

Why it works: Dill and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 976 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Dill + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together976 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together530 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Horseradish + dilltop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together640 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,998 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horseradish, sauce, yogurt, cucumber, dill, mint, lemon):

Beetrootfits better
Mustardfits better
Broccolifits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, sauce, yogurt, cucumber, dill, mint, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Couscous	1 cup cooked (157g)	176
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Cucumber	1/2 cup sliced (52g)	16
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Dill	5 sprigs fresh (1g) / 1 tsp dried	4
Horseradish	not in our table	0
Sauce	not in our table	0
Peppermint	not in our table	0
Beetroot	not in our table	0
Mackerel	not in our table	0

Smoked Mackerel with Herb & Beet Couscous