Name: Fricasseed Tripe
Ingredients: 1 pound tripe; ½ cup water or milk; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon flour; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; parsley, chopped (optional); oysters (optional)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Tripe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the tripe into narrow strips.
In a pot, combine the tripe with water or milk.
Add butter and flour, stirring to combine.
Season with pepper and salt.

Cook and serve

Simmer gently for 30 minutes.
If using, add oysters 5 minutes before serving.
Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley if desired.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Tripe: Is the main ingredient, becoming tender after gentle simmering in the liquid.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a light, smooth sauce around the tripe.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, pepper, oyster):

Nutmegfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Cinnamonfits about as well
Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, pepper, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.