Name: Dandelion Greens
Ingredients: young dandelions; salt; butter; pepper

Why it works: Dandelion and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77 recipes. Both carry 2-heptenal, which smells green. The science ↓

Dandelion Greens

Ingredients

young dandelions
salt
butter
pepper

Directions

Pick over and wash the young dandelions carefully.
Boil them in salted water for about 2 hours, or until tender.
Drain carefully and season with butter and pepper.

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.

Dandelion + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together77 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Dandelion + buttertop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).