Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Celery Dressing
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the beaten eggs, salt, mixed mustard, vinegar, and milk or cream.
Boil the mixture and then let it cool before using.
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,003 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, vinegar, milk):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, vinegar, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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