Name: Fried Onions with Heels
Ingredients: 117 pepper; salt to taste; minced parsley; ghee or butter for frying; a good dish of onions

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 ↓

Fried Onions with Heels

Ingredients

Directions

In a pan, heat ghee or butter over medium heat.
Add pepper, salt, and minced parsley; fry until fragrant.
Slice the onions thinly and fry them in the same ghee until golden.
Serve the fried onions hot, topped with the fried heels.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ghee + oniontop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,310 recipes
Pepper + gheetop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together690 recipes

Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).