Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Chaud-froid of Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the gelatine in half of the cold water and let it stand for 10 minutes.
In a saucepan, combine the stock, vinegar, parsley, black pepper, and half of the salt. Heat until tepid.
Add the gelatine to the stock mixture.
In a bowl, beat the egg whites and mix with the remaining cold water.
Pour the egg mixture into the stock and whisk until it boils.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,451 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, cream, vinegar, parsley, egg):
- Nutmegfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Capersfits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cream, vinegar, parsley, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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