Name: Salsify or Vegetable Oysters
Ingredients: salsify; water; cream sauce; chopped parsley; buttered toast; fritter batter; lard

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salsify or Vegetable Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Scrape the salsify thoroughly and soak it in cold water to prevent discoloration.
In a porcelain or granite-lined saucepan, cook the salsify in boiling water until tender.
For serving, cut the salsify into small, even pieces and heat in a prepared cream sauce.
Sprinkle chopped parsley on top for added flavor.
Alternatively, spread the salsify on slices of buttered toast.
You can also make a fritter batter and fry the salsify in boiling lard.

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.

Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,392 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).