Why it works: Fish and buttermilk work together. They rank in the top 48% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Black Fish
Ingredients
Directions
If using salt fish, soak it overnight in cold water.
Boil the fish the next day; it won't require much cooking.
For frying or broiling, soak the fish for at least 24 hours in buttermilk, especially in warm weather.
Rinse and drain the fish 1-2 hours before broiling.
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.
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Fish + buttermilktop 48% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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