Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Jerusalem Artichokes, a L’ Italeenne
Ingredients
Directions
Shape the artichokes into fancy forms and arrange them in a deep sauté pan coated with butter.
Season with mignonette pepper, nutmeg, coarse sea salt, and lemon juice.
Add a little consommé to moisten the artichokes.
Cover the pan and simmer gently over low heat for about 30 minutes until they turn deep yellow.
Serve the artichokes with Italian sauce poured around them.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Jerusalem artichoke + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together48 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Jerusalem artichoke + lemontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together72 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the jerusalem artichoke
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon):
- Spinachfits about as well
- Shallotfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Jerusalem artichokethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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