Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Fried Salsify
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice and boil the salsify roots until tender.
Drain the salsify and dust with salt, pepper, sugar, and flour.
Fry and serve
Heat the drippings in a frying pan.
Add the salsify to the hot pan and turn carefully until browned on all sides.
Serve with baked or hot boiled ham.
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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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
What each ingredient does
- Salsify roots
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled and crisping when fried.
- Flour
- Dusted on the salsify to help create a light coating that browns in the hot fat.
- Drippings
- Fry the salsify in hot fat, promoting browning and adding savory flavor.
- Sugar
- Adds a little sweetness and supports browning on the coated salsify.
The step that matters
Turning the salsify in the hot pan. Salsify pieces are fragile after boiling and can break apart if handled roughly. Turning them carefully lets the flour coating brown evenly on all sides, giving a crisp, golden surface rather than a torn or pale one.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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