Name: A LA Bouquetiere
Ingredients: carrots; turnips; string beans; cauliflower; Hollandaise sauce; brown gravy

Why it works: Carrot and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,001 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare clusters of vegetables including carrots, turnips, string beans, and cauliflower.
Cover the cauliflower with Hollandaise sauce.
Serve with brown gravy.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together8,001 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + cauliflowertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together286 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beans + cauliflowertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together290 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Carrot + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,441 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Turnip + beanstop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together400 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, beans, sauce):

Parsnipbetter flavor fit
Tomatobetter flavor fit
Beetrootbetter flavor fit
Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, beans, sauce. 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).