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Al Fresco

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Al Fresco

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry black bass until crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

  2. Bake grass pike whole until perfectly cooked.

  3. Fry little perch until crispy.

  4. Roast mallard after stuffing with sage and onions.

  5. Prepare a pot pie with coots, reed birds, snipe, and teal.

  6. Roast potatoes in their jackets.

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.

  1. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sage + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Grass + sagetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Grass + oniontop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grass, onion, potato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grass, onion, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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