Name: Choux De Bruxelles a LA Maitre D'hotel
Ingredients: Brussels sprouts; butter; lemon; white sauce; cream; grated cheese; breadcrumbs; hard-boiled egg yolk; croutons

Why it works: Butter and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,955 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Boil the Brussels sprouts until tender.
In a pan, sauté the sprouts in butter with lemon.
For a layered dish, alternate layers of white sauce, cream, and grated cheese with the sprouts.
Top with breadcrumbs and hard-boiled egg yolk.
Garnish with croutons before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Butter + cheesetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together7,955 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together41,494 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sauce + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,786 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cream + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,649 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + saucetop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together15,317 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce share little aroma chemistry, yet 15,317 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, sauce, cream, cheese, egg):

Asparagusbetter flavor fit
Potatobetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, sauce, cream, cheese, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).