Why it works: Pecans and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,416 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Salt Pecans
Ingredients
Directions
Carefully break the pecan shells to keep the nuts in two pieces.
Parch the pecans in a pan over medium heat, stirring briskly until they are light brown.
Remove from heat and moisten with a little butter.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and serve on small individual dishes.
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.
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Pecans + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,416 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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