Name: Nasturtium Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pint well-boiled melted butter sauce; 2 teaspoons vinegar or strained lemon juice; pickled nasturtiums, gherkins, green peas, or French beans (cut to the size of capers)

Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Nasturtium Sauce

Ingredients

½ pint well-boiled melted butter sauce
2 teaspoons vinegar or strained lemon juice
pickled nasturtiums, gherkins, green peas, or French beans (cut to the size of capers)

Directions

Add vinegar or lemon juice and pickled ingredients to the melted butter sauce. Heat the sauce until hot and serve in a tureen.

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 + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Vinegar + peastop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together676 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Sauce + vinegartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,844 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

What each ingredient does

Melted butter sauce: Forms the rich base of the sauce and carries the other flavours.
Vinegar or lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances its fat.
Pickled nasturtiums, gherkins, green peas, or french beans: Contributes tangy, briny bites that give the sauce texture and contrast.