Name: Fried Parsnips
Ingredients: parsnips; salt; butter; egg (optional); breadcrumbs (optional)

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fried Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and scrape the parsnips.
Cut them into lengthwise slices.
Boil the slices in salted water for 15 minutes.
Drain the parsnips and brown them in a frying pan with butter.
If desired, dip the parsnips in egg and breadcrumbs before frying.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Parsnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).
Parsnip + eggtop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together442 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).