Name: Vienna Rolls
Ingredients: large Vienna rolls; butter; asparagus shoots (4 inches long); cream; eggs; salt; pepper; parsley (for garnish)

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 ↓

Vienna Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut off the tops of the hot Vienna rolls to create a cover and hollow out the insides.
Sprinkle the insides with butter and return to the oven to brown and keep hot.
Scrape, wash, and tie the asparagus shoots, cutting them to fit the rolls.
Boil the asparagus until tender, then drain on a towel.
In a saucepan, boil the cream, then remove from heat and mix in beaten eggs.
Add small pieces of butter to the sauce until rich, then season with salt and pepper.
Fill the rolls with asparagus tips, pour the sauce over, and replace the tops.
Serve on a folded napkin and garnish with parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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).
Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together566 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,968 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, egg, pepper, parsley):

Potatofits about as well
Spinachfits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Asparagusthe original

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