Name: Fried Whitefish
Ingredients: Whitefish; Salt; Pepper; Cornmeal or flour; Cleared dripping or sweet lard

Why it works: Whitefish and flour work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fried Whitefish

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the whitefish without splitting.
Season with salt and pepper.
Roll the fish in cornmeal or flour.
Fry in cleared dripping or sweet lard until cooked.
Drain off the fat and serve on a hot dish.

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.

Whitefish + flourtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together55 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Whitefish + peppertop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together97 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).