Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Modern Cookery
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the fowl or bird in half before broiling.
Lay the inside of the bird to the fire first.
Wrap fish in a thickly buttered sheet of writing paper before grilling.
For delicate fish, rub the grill bars with chalk instead of suet.
Season cutlets with salt and pepper, then dip in clarified butter.
Cook the cutlets with a small slice of butter underneath.
Insert lighted paper into the cooking apparatus and cover.
Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, turning occasionally until tender.
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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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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