Name: Brussels Sprouts Saute
Ingredients: 1 quart Brussels sprouts; 1 teaspoon salt; 3 tablespoons butter; 1/2 teaspoon pepper

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 ↓

Brussels Sprouts Saute

Ingredients

1 quart Brussels sprouts
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions

Prepare

Blanch the Brussels sprouts and drain well.

Sauté

In a broad-bottomed saucepan, combine the sprouts, butter, salt, and pepper.
Place over high heat and shake frequently.
Cook for 5 minutes.
Serve hot.

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.

Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Brussels sprouts + peppertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Brussels sprouts + buttertop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together20 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Brussels sprouts: Form the main body of the dish, cooking to tender with a lightly browned surface.
Butter: Adds fat for sautéing, carrying flavor and helping the sprouts brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Drain the blanched sprouts well before sautéing. Surface water would steam the sprouts in the hot pan instead of letting them sear and brown. Excess moisture also splatters and dilutes the butter, so draining thoroughly helps the sprouts caramelize.