Name: Baked Asparagus
Ingredients: asparagus; butter; creamed dressing; bread crumbs

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Asparagus

Ingredients

asparagus
butter
creamed dressing
bread crumbs

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the asparagus as you would for creamed asparagus.
Boil the asparagus until tender.
Place the stalks in a buttered baking dish.
Pour the creamed dressing over the asparagus.
Sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for twenty minutes.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together363 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,026 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).