Name: Turbot Au Bechamel, Or, in Bechamel Sauce
Ingredients: cold turbot; clarified butter; fried bread crumbs

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turbot Au Bechamel, Or, in Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

cold turbot
clarified butter
fried bread crumbs

Directions

Prepare the cold turbot as previously described.
Serve it in a vol-au-vent or a deep dish.
Cut fried bread into elegant shapes for a border.
Cover the surface with a half-inch layer of delicately fried bread crumbs, well drained and dried.
Alternatively, spread the fish with un-fried bread crumbs, moisten with clarified butter, and brown with a salamander.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Turbot + breadtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together129 recipes

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