Name: Grenadins with Creamy Sauce
Ingredients: 5 ounces of butter; 2 teaspoons of tarragon vinegar; 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley; mashed potatoes; crisply fried bacon; flageolets or petits pois

Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Grenadins with Creamy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Melt 1 ounce of butter in a pan over medium heat.
Stir for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and add another ounce of butter.
Repeat this process until all 5 ounces of butter are used, stirring until the sauce is rich and creamy.
Add tarragon vinegar and chopped parsley to the sauce.
Dish the grenadins around a ring of mashed potatoes, placing a slice of bacon between each.
Serve the sauce hot in a boat, and fill the potato ring with flageolets or petits pois.

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.

Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Tarragon + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tarragon, vinegar, parsley):

Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Mustardfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tarragon, vinegar, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.