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Butternut and Sweet Potato Lasagne, with Sage, Toasted Pine Nuts and Nutmeg

This is one of my stalwart recipes that used to only make an appearance when there was a vegetarian over at my house. But then the family began to fall in love with the soft wintry flavours and that creamy white sauce. This white sauce is a shortcut white sauce, everything just gets put in a bowl and stirred, very, very simple and just as tasty as the traditional white sauce.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 61 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep30 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sage + pinetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together61 recipes

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

  2. Rosemary + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  3. Rosemary + pinetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pine + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Rosemary + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,489 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butternut squash, rosemary, sage, olive, pine, nuts):

  1. Spinachthe original
  2. Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butternut squash, rosemary, sage, olive, pine, nuts. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).