Why it works: Sauce and butter 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 ↓
Italian Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the red tongue or ham and anchovies into small dice and place them with the chicken.
In a stewpan, combine Veloute sauce and curry paste, boil while stirring until thick.
Add the chicken and lemon juice, mix well.
Cut sandwich loaf into 2 dozen croutons using a circular cutter.
Fry croutons in clarified butter until bright yellow, then drain on a napkin.
Spread the sauce mixture on half of the croutons, then top with the remaining croutons.
Mix grated Parmesan with butter to form a paste, divide into 12 balls, and place one on each sandwich.
Warm the sandwiches in the oven for 10 minutes, then use a salamander to color them bright yellow before serving.
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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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,314 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Ham + lemontop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,788 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sauce and butter 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 lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sauce, butter):
- Applefits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sauce, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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