Name: Grenadins with Creamy Sauce
Ingredients: 7 egg yolks; 5 ounces butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; mashed potatoes; crispy fried bacon; flageolets or petits pois (optional)

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

Grenadins with Creamy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a stew-pan, combine egg yolks, 1 ounce of butter, salt, and pepper.
Stir over low heat until yolks thicken.
Remove from heat and stir in 1 ounce of butter.
Return to heat for 2 minutes, then remove and add another ounce of butter.
Repeat this process twice more, using a total of 5 ounces of butter.
Stir until the sauce is rich and creamy, then add tarragon vinegar and chopped parsley.
Serve grenadins arranged around a ring of mashed potatoes, with a slice of crispy bacon between each.
Serve the sauce hot in a boat, and optionally 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the potato

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

Shallotbetter flavor fit
Chivebetter flavor fit
Mustardbetter flavor fit
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, tarragon, vinegar, parsley. 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).