Name: Jerusalem Artichokes, a L’lTALIENNE
Ingredients: Jerusalem artichokes; butter; mignonette pepper; nutmeg; coarse sea salt; lemon juice; consommé; Italian sauce

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Jerusalem Artichokes, a L’lTALIENNE

Ingredients

Directions

Shape the artichokes into fancy forms.
Arrange them in a deep sauté pan coated with butter.
Season with mignonette pepper, nutmeg, coarse sea salt, and lemon juice.
Add a little consommé to moisten.
Cover and simmer gently over low heat for about 30 minutes until they turn deep yellow.
Serve with Italian sauce poured around them.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Jerusalem artichoke + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together48 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Jerusalem artichoke + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together72 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Swap the jerusalem artichoke

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, sauce):

Shallotfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Jerusalem artichokethe original
Spinachfits about as well

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