Name: Asparagus Toast
Ingredients: slices of zwieback; hot nut milk; sauce for asparagus with egg sauce

Why it works: Milk and asparagus work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 650 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Asparagus Toast

Ingredients

slices of zwieback
hot nut milk
sauce for asparagus with egg sauce

Directions

Moisten the slices of zwieback in hot nut milk.
Top the zwieback with a sauce made like the recipe for asparagus with egg sauce.

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.

Milk + asparagustop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together650 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,338 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sauce + asparagustop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together573 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + saucetop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).