Name: To Fry Salsify
Ingredients: 1 cup white wine; 1 cup small beer; flour (enough to thicken); oil or butter for frying; salsify

Why it works: White wine and beer share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 57 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Fry Salsify

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the salsify until tender.
Cut the salsify into slices about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.

Batter and fry

Dip the slices into a batter made with white wine, small beer, and enough flour to thicken it.
Fry the slices in oil or butter until golden brown.

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.

White wine + beertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together57 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beer + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together680 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Beer + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together781 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

What each ingredient does

Salsify: Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled before frying.
Flour: Thickens the wine and beer batter so it coats the salsify slices.
White wine: Adds acidity and flavor to the batter.
Small beer: Adds liquid and flavor to the batter, helping it coat the slices.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.