Name: To Cook Salsify
Ingredients: salsify; bread crumbs or crushed crackers; coarse sea salt; black pepper; nutmeg; butter; water

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

To Cook Salsify

Ingredients

Directions

Boil salsify until the skin comes off easily.
Cut the salsify into pieces about the size of an oyster.
In a deep baking dish, layer bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
Add a thin layer of butter, then a layer of salsify.
Repeat the layers until the dish is filled, finishing with bread crumbs on top.
Pour in enough water to fill the dish, then bake until brown.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).