Name: Beet Greens
Ingredients: beet greens; salted or smoked lean meat (optional); butter; lemon juice

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Beet Greens

Ingredients

beet greens
salted or smoked lean meat (optional)
butter
lemon juice

Directions

Wash the beet greens and boil them in a small amount of water until tender.
If desired, add a small piece of salted or smoked lean meat while boiling for extra flavor.
Chop the cooked greens finely and mix with butter and lemon juice.
Prepare a brown butter sauce using the boiling water, then mix it with the chopped greens and let it boil for a second.
Flavor the mixture with additional lemon juice.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + lemontop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,817 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).