Name: Cauliflower Fritters
Ingredients: cooked sprigs of cauliflower; cayenne pepper; batter; boiling fat; parsley

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 ↓

Cauliflower Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Sprinkle a little cayenne pepper over the cooked cauliflower sprigs.
Dip each sprig separately in batter.
Fry in boiling fat for three minutes.
Arrange on a hot dish and garnish with crisp parsley.

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).
Cauliflower + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together233 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,113 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).