Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Sauce Heneiette
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the butter and divide it into three parts.
In a saucepan, combine one part of butter with the beaten egg yolks, cold water, and lemon juice.
Set the saucepan in a larger pan of hot water over medium heat and stir constantly until the butter melts.
Add the second part of butter and stir until melted, then add the third part.
Stir in the tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, salt, and cayenne until smooth.
To make the tomato puree, cook half a can of tomatoes until reduced to 2 tablespoons, then strain.
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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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lemon + tomatotop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,592 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,469 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 tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, egg, lemon, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, egg, lemon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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