Why it works: Kale and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 226 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Sea-kale
Ingredients
Directions
Cut off any green parts of the sea-kale.
Cook the sea-kale in boiling water until tender, similar to asparagus.
In a separate pot, melt butter and whisk in flour to thicken the stock.
Add lemon juice to the thickened stock.
Pour the sauce over the cooked sea-kale before serving.
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.
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Kale + lemontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together226 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Kale + flourtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together147 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (kale, butter, flour):
- Avocadofits better
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
- Limefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against kale, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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