Name: Salsifis À LA Sauce Blanche
Ingredients: 2 salsifies; 1 tablespoon white vinegar; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 1 tablespoon lemon juice or additional white vinegar; white sauce

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salsifis À LA Sauce Blanche

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel the salsifies.
Place the peeled salsifies in water with a little white vinegar to prevent browning.

Cook and serve

Cook the salsifies in boiling water with butter, salt, black pepper, and lemon juice or vinegar for about one hour.
Once cooked, remove the salsifies and drizzle them with a good white sauce.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,334 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salsifies: Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when simmered for a long time.
White vinegar: Acidity in the acidulated water that slows browning of the peeled salsify.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the cooking liquid, contributing flavour and mouthfeel.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the salsify pale.
White sauce: Adds creamy richness and moisture that complements the mild, earthy salsify.

The step that matters

Acidulating the peeled salsify. Peeled salsify oxidises and darkens quickly on contact with air. Keeping it submerged in water with vinegar slows this browning, so the pieces stay pale until they are cooked.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, pepper, sauce):

Lemonthe original
Mangofits about as well
Plumfits about as well
Limefits about as well

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

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Salsifis À LA Sauce Blanche