Name: Scalloped Vegetables
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; ½ teaspoon salt; ⅛ teaspoon white pepper; 1 pint cooked vegetables (beans, peas, onions, etc.) or 1 pint mashed or cubed turnips, potatoes, etc.

Why it works: Butter and beans are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,799 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Scalloped Vegetables

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon white pepper
1 pint cooked vegetables (beans, peas, onions, etc.) or 1 pint mashed or cubed turnips, potatoes, etc.

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a baking dish, layer the cooked vegetables.
Dot the top with butter, then sprinkle with salt and white pepper.

Bake

Bake until heated through and slightly golden on top, about 20-30 minutes.

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.

Butter + beanstop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
White pepper + beanstop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together87 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Cooked vegetables: Form the bulk of the dish and provide its main texture and flavour.