Name: Wow Wow Sauce for Stewed Beef, or Beef Bouilli
Ingredients: 1 handful young parsley, finely chopped; 2 or 3 pickled cucumbers, quartered and sliced; or walnuts, or part of each

Why it works: Cucumber and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 380 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Wow Wow Sauce for Stewed Beef, or Beef Bouilli

Ingredients

1 handful young parsley, finely chopped
2 or 3 pickled cucumbers, quartered and sliced
or walnuts, or part of each

Directions

Prepare

Chop the parsley very fine.
Quarter and slice the pickled cucumbers or walnuts, or use a combination of both.

Assemble

Mix all ingredients together.

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.

Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together865 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,564 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsley: Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a bright green flavour to the sauce.
Pickled cucumbers: Add acidity and a tangy crunch that cut through the richness of the stew.
Walnuts: Add body, a slight bitterness and a crunchy texture to the sauce.