Name: Breakfast Dish
Ingredients: 2 cups boiled potatoes, sliced; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1/4 teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon Tarragon vinegar; 1/2 cup milk; poached eggs (for serving)

Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

Directions

In a stewpan, combine the sliced boiled potatoes, lemon juice, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and Tarragon vinegar.
Pour the milk over the mixture and cover the saucepan tightly.
Shake the saucepan over medium heat for 10 minutes.
Serve the dish with poached eggs on top.

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.

Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Nutmeg + tarragontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the dish, absorbing the milk and seasonings as they heat through.
Milk: Adds moisture and creaminess as it warms with the potatoes.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the potatoes and milk.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds sharp acidity and a subtle herbal aroma.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, nutmeg, pepper, tarragon, vinegar, milk, egg):

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, nutmeg, pepper, tarragon, vinegar, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.