Name: Gemelli with Brown Butter & Asparagus
Ingredients: 2 Tbs. salt, plus more, to taste; 1 lb. asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces; 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter; 1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and coarsely chopped; 1 lb. gemelli or other short pasta, such as penne; Freshly ground pepper, to taste; 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Why it works: Asparagus and hazelnut work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 13 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

2 Tbs. salt, plus more, to taste
1 lb. asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and coarsely chopped
1 lb. gemelli or other short pasta, such as penne
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

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.

Asparagus + hazelnuttop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together13 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + cheesetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together7,955 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Asparagus + pastatop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together116 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).
Asparagus + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,968 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Hazelnut + pastatop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the hazelnut

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

Beansbetter flavor fit
Peasbetter flavor fit
Sesamebetter flavor fit
Hazelnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, pasta, pepper, cheese. 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).

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