Name: Calves Leet Au Gratin, and Spanish Sauce
Ingredients: calves' feet; 2 eggs; bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons chopped shallots; 1 teaspoon thyme; 1 teaspoon parsley; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Calves Leet Au Gratin, and Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Dip the calves' feet in beaten eggs.
Roll them in bread crumbs mixed with shallots, thyme, parsley, pepper, and salt.
Repeat the egg and bread crumb process, using plain bread crumbs for the second coating.
Fry the calves' feet until they are a nice light brown.
Arrange them around a dish and serve the sauce in the middle.

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.

Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,476 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, thyme, parsley, pepper):

Shallotthe original
Carrotfits about as well
Leekfits less well
Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, thyme, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.