Why it works: Beef and watercress work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and 94 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Carve the cold corned beef very thinly until it curls.
Arrange the beef on a bed of watercress.
Each person should transfer a piece of beef and a sprig of watercress to their plate using their fingers.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Beef + watercresstop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together94 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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