Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Made Dishes of Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the clarified butter in a pan until well done and browned.
Add the consomme and plain sauce; bring to a boil.
Strain the sauce through a tammy.
Fry the onions until well browned and add them to the strained sauce.
Gently heat the sauce until it begins to boil, then squeeze in the lemon juice.
Broil the pork cutlets and place them on a serving dish.
Pour the sauce in the center of the cutlets and serve.
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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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,474 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,646 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, onion):
- Avocadofits better
- Coconutfits better
- Mangofits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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