Name: Spare Ribs
Ingredients: spare ribs; pepper; coarse sea salt; fine sage; bread crumbs

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spare Ribs

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the spare ribs with pepper, coarse sea salt, and fine sage.
Optionally, place a dressing of bread crumbs between the ribs before roasting.
Roast the ribs until cooked through.

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.

Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,778 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).