Name: Chili Vinegar
Ingredients: salt; butter; vegetables; pepper; chopped parsley; chicken

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chili Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the vegetables in salted water until tender, then drain well.
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the vegetables to the butter, season with pepper, and toss until the butter is absorbed.
Arrange the chicken in the center of a serving dish.
Strain the hot sauce over the chicken.
Group the vegetables around the base of the chicken.
Sprinkle chopped parsley over the vegetables and serve.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pepper + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Parsley + chickentop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,314 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).