Name: Veal Scallops, White
Ingredients: veal scallops; clarified butter; good white sauce; cooked celery; cooked artichokes; fried potatoes

Why it works: Celery and artichoke match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 183 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Veal Scallops, White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal scallops as in the recipe for Veal Scallops.
Fry the scallops in clarified butter until thoroughly cooked but not browned.
Drain the scallops and arrange them in a circle on a serving dish.
Pour good white sauce around the scallops.
Place cooked celery, cooked artichokes, or fried potatoes in the center of the dish.

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.

Celery + artichoketop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together183 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Scallop + saucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together130 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + artichoketop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together893 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Sauce + artichoketop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together462 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, scallop, butter, sauce, artichoke, fried potato):

Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
Tarragonfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, scallop, butter, sauce, artichoke, fried potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.