Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil 81 ounces of water with a few grains of salt until soft, about 5 minutes.
Strain the pumpkin and discard the water.
Pass the pumpkin through a colander and place it in a saucepan with 2 ounces of butter.
Stir in 1 pint of very hot milk gradually.
Cut half of a French roll into thin shavings and add to the soup.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then pour it over the bread in a soup tureen.
Cover quickly and serve, allowing people to add sugar or salt to taste.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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