Name: Sole Au Gratin
Ingredients: 1 sole; ½ cup parsley; ¼ of a shallot; 4 mushrooms; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 2 tablespoons butter; crumbs

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sole Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the outside fins from the sole with a sharp knife.
Cut through the skin across the head and tail on both sides of the fish.
Peel the skin off from the tail to the head.
Wash the sole in cold water, dry it with a cloth, and nick it on both sides.
You can cook the sole whole or in fillets; we will cook it whole.
Dry a small bunch of parsley with a cloth.
Chop the parsley finely on a board.
Finely chop a quarter of a shallot and mix it with the parsley.
The chopped mixture should fill a tablespoon.
Wash the mushrooms in cold water, dry them, and peel them.
Chop the mushrooms finely.
Spread a little butter on a dish with your fingers.
Sprinkle half of the chopped parsley, shallot, and mushrooms over the bottom of the buttered dish.
Pour half a teaspoon of lemon juice over the mixture in the dish, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

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 together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,982 recipes

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