Name: Fried Meats
Ingredients: 1 cup minced fish; 2 cups boiled and mashed potatoes; 1 tablespoon butter; ½ teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons milk; 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the fish, scraping off salt and fat.
Place it in a saucepan, cover with blood-warm water, and simmer for 2 hours.
Remove the fish, pick out the bones, and remove the skin. Set aside to cool.
Once cold, chop the fish finely in a wooden tray.
In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes with butter, salt, and milk while hot.
Add the beaten egg yolk and mix until smooth.
Stir in the chopped fish gradually until well combined.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).