Name: Baked Shad
Ingredients: shad; 1 cup bread crumbs; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped; 1 beaten egg yolk; ¼ cup water; 2 tablespoons melted butter

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Shad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Stuff the shad with bread crumbs, salt, pepper, butter, parsley, and the beaten egg yolk.
Tie the fish with string.

Bake

Pour water and melted butter over the fish.
Bake for 1.5 hours.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Soak up the buttery juices and give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Beaten egg yolk: Binds the stuffing so it holds together rather than falling apart in the cavity.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the fish stay moist as it bakes.