Name: Gnocchi
Ingredients: 10-12 potatoes; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter; 3 egg yolks; 1 egg white; 1 handful grated Parmesan cheese; flour for dusting

Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Gnocchi

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the potatoes in water with their skins on until done.
Peel the potatoes and pass them through a fine sieve into a pan.
Dust the puree with a little coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Work in a little butter, the yolks of three eggs, the white of one egg, and the grated Parmesan cheese.
Pour the mixture onto a floured board and proceed with shaping the gnocchi.

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.

Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,322 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, egg, parmesan cheese, flour):

Asparagusfits better
Spinachfits better
Chivefits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, egg, parmesan cheese, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.