Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Sea-kale
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sea-kale until tender.
Toast the bread.
Place the boiled sea-kale on the toast.
Drizzle with butter sauce or Espagnole sauce before serving.
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.
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Kale + saucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together87 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Kale + buttertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together247 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
Swap the kale
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce):
- Shallotfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Onionfits better
- Kalethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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