Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Collops, Savoury
Ingredients
Directions
Brown the meat in a pan.
Cover the meat with stock No. 5 and season with pepper, nutmeg, and chopped parsley.
Minced onion can be fried with the meat at the start.
Add a little mushroom ketchup and simmer for at least one hour.
Thicken the sauce with browned flour or roux and add salt to taste.
Garnish with croutons.
For enhanced flavor, add a glass of port or claret near the end of cooking and season with sweet herbs at the beginning.
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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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,062 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, mushroom, ketchup, flour):
- Shallotfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, mushroom, ketchup, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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