Name: Fried Halibut
Ingredients: choice piece of halibut; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter; 1 beaten egg yolk; grated nutmeg; powdered mace; grated bread crumbs; lard for frying

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fried Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and dry the halibut with a soft towel.
Cut it into thick fillets and remove the bone.
Slice the fillets and place them on a dish, removing the skin.
Season with salt and pepper, and place a piece of butter on each slice.
Dip the slices into the beaten egg yolk seasoned with nutmeg and mace.
Coat the slices in grated bread crumbs.
Heat lard in a frying pan and fry the slices until golden on one side.
Turn the slices and fry until cooked through.
Remove from the pan and drain before serving hot.

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.

Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the mace

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

Cinnamonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Marjoramfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, egg, nutmeg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.