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Menu For, a Dinner of Six

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Menu For, a Dinner of Six

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Half fry or bake the pepper, salt, onion, and sweet herbs, then let them cool.

  2. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 2 eggs with 1 tablespoon of brandy, 1 tablespoon of salad oil, and 4-5 tablespoons of water.

  3. Mix in 3 tablespoons of flour and a pinch of salt, adjusting with more water or flour as needed.

  4. Just before frying, fold in the whipped egg whites.

  5. Dip the collops into the batter and place them in a frying basket.

  6. Fry in boiling fat until they turn a deep yellow, then drain on blotting paper.

  7. Serve crisp and dry on a napkin, garnished with fried parsley and lime slices.

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.

  1. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, brandy, flour, parsley, lime):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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