Why it works: Olive and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,458 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Broiled Scollops of Fillets of Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Stir the whole egg and egg yolks together in a hot pan for about 1 minute.
Transfer the mixture to a small kitchen pan and mix in the truffle and champignons.
Peel the olives close to the stone to create curls, then fill each with a little German quenelle.
Simmer the prepared olives in stock or water for about 5 minutes.
Place the olives in boiling Espagnol sauce and set aside.
About 40 minutes before dinner, place the fillets of beef in the oven.
Cut 16 pieces of bread and fry until light brown.
Prepare potato paste as needed.
When the beef is nearly done, place it in a clean sauté pan with its essence and glaze it before returning it to the oven.
Strain the stock from the vegetables and reduce it to a glaze, then coat the scallops with this glaze.
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.
-
Olive + potatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,458 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
-
Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,091 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
-
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
-
Truffle + olivetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together435 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
-
Bread + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together434 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, truffle, olive, sauce, bread):
- Tomatofits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, truffle, olive, sauce, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Brown Bread461 recipes
Potato Croquettes255 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Potato Rolls78 recipes