Name: Creamed Fish in Shells
Ingredients: fish; hot water; rice or hominy; prawns or parsley or watercress; pink roses or pink carnations; Hollandaise sauce

Why it works: Rice and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,762 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Fish in Shells

Ingredients

Directions

Steam the fish in hot water for 10-15 minutes.
Arrange the fish pieces standing on end around a mound of rice or hominy.
Garnish the top with prawns, parsley, watercress, and a few pink roses or pink carnations.
Serve with green or pink Hollandaise sauce.

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.

Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,762 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together270 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,396 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).