Name: Baked Black Bass
Ingredients: 8 medium onions, finely chopped; 4 cups bread crumbs; ½ cup butter; plenty of pepper; coarse sea salt; anchovy sauce; red pepper; optional: tomatoes instead of anchovies; optional: pork instead of butter

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,057 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Black Bass

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the chopped onions, bread crumbs, butter, pepper, salt, and anchovy sauce until the mixture is red.
Stuff the fish with the mixture and pour any remaining over the top.
Sprinkle with a little red pepper before baking.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, bread, butter, pepper, anchovy, sauce, pork):

Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
Tomatothe original
Mustardabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, bread, butter, pepper, anchovy, sauce, pork. 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).