Name: Cod a LA Maitbe D'hotel
Ingredients: cod; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons chives, chopped; 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped; ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg; 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

Dress the cod as desired.
Place the cod on a serving dish.

Make the sauce and serve

In a bowl, mix the butter, pepper, chives, parsley, nutmeg, and lemon juice or vinegar.
Spread the mixture over the fish and serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,036 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together27,039 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod: Forms the main body of the dish, providing the flaky fish that the butter sauce coats.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, carrying the herbs and seasonings over the fish.
Lemon juice or vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.
Chives: Contributes a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavour to the sauce.
Parsley: Adds fresh, green herbal flavour and colour to the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, parsley, nutmeg, lemon):

Carrotbetter flavor fit
Potatobetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, nutmeg, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.