Name: Fried Parsnips
Ingredients: Parsnips; Coarse sea salt; White pepper; Good butter

Why it works: Parsnip and white pepper work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 46 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Fried Parsnips

Ingredients

Parsnips
Coarse sea salt
White pepper
Good butter

Directions

Boil the parsnips until they are half done, about 10-15 minutes.
Remove them from the water and let them cool.
Slice the parsnips thickly.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and white pepper.
Fry in good butter until pale brown.
Serve with roast meat or place under it.

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.

Parsnip + white peppertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together46 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Parsnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).
White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).