Why it works: Endive and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 111 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Endive
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the endive thoroughly and soak in salt water for 3 hours.
In a saucepan, combine water, mace, and white pepper. Bring to a boil.
Add the asparagus and simmer until tender.
Drain the endive and add the leaves to the saucepan with a pint of white wine.
Cover and boil until the endive is tender.
Mix in butter rolled in flour, cover, and shake the pan.
Arrange the whole head of endive in the center of a serving dish, surround with celery and asparagus, and pour the cooking liquid over it. Season with salt.
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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Endive + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together111 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,695 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,405 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Endive + buttertop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together204 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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 white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (endive, mace, butter, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against endive, mace, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More endive recipes
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