Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Stewed Fennel
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the fennel in plenty of cold water and trim off the hard leaves.
Parboil the fennel for five minutes, then immerse in cold water and trim evenly.
Cook the fennel like celery, then pour over it some butter and either Allemande or Espagnole sauce.
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 + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Fennel + saucetop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together181 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Fennel + buttertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together647 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Swap the fennel
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce):
- Capersfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Fennelthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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