Name: Mixed Pickles
Ingredients: Asparagus; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; Bread; Melted butter

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Asparagus
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
Bread
Melted butter

Directions

Wash and clean the asparagus carefully.
Cut away the hard part at the bottom, leaving enough to hold comfortably.
Scrape and trim the asparagus to equal lengths, then tie in parcels.
Boil the asparagus in water with salt until tender, then lift out.
Toast bread in the shape of the serving dish and dip it in the boiling water liquor.
Place the asparagus on the toasted bread and serve with melted butter.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together363 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,026 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).