Name: Beetroot Fritters
Ingredients: 1 large beetroot; 1 large Spanish onion; Vinegar, to taste; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Thick béchamel sauce; Frying batter; Boiling fat or lard; Parsley, for garnish

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beetroot Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the beetroot and onion until tender.
Remove the skin from the beetroot and slice it into thin rounds.
Season the beetroot slices with vinegar, salt, and pepper.
Finely chop the boiled onion and moisten it with thick béchamel sauce.
Spread the béchamel on one side of each beetroot slice and sandwich two slices together.
Dip the sandwiches in frying batter and drop them into boiling fat or lard.
Fry for five minutes until golden, then drain on a cloth.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and garnish with parsley before serving.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beetroot + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together745 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beetroot + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,261 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, vinegar, pepper, sauce, parsley):

Shallotfits better
Horseradishfits better
Lettucefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, vinegar, pepper, sauce, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.