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Pumpkin Tortelli with Brown Butter and Sage

Aromatic, velvety gray-green sage is a perennial that grows in profusion all over Italy. In Roman times, it was prized for both its medicinal properties and as a flavoring. Today, its chief use is culinary, including in such traditional recipes as chicken livers sautéed in butter and veal saltimbocca. Here, it infuses melted butter, to create a common northern Italian preparation for saucing stuffed pastas, in this case

By williamssonoma · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,312 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6.

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By williamssonoma. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cheese, pepper, flour, pasta, butter):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Capersabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cheese, pepper, flour, pasta, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).