Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
An Elegant Crustade of Jerusalem Artichokes
Ingredients
Directions
Make a firm paste with the yolk of egg, milk, sugar, salt, and flour; work it until extremely smooth and tough by rolling.
Choose Jerusalem artichokes of one size and similar shape.
Mould the paste thinly around the artichokes and cut the top off with a sharp knife.
Ornament the edges, cut out a round with a border to fall over, and cut a hole the size of a shilling in the middle.
Egg the crustade and lay it over the artichokes.
Scoop out part of the artichoke, add a bit of nice fresh butter seasoned with mace and salt, and finish as potato crustades.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, flour, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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