Name: To Boil Prawns
Ingredients: 1 handful coarse sea salt; 1 pot of boiling water; 1 handful curled parsley; salt, to taste; cayenne pepper, to taste; sweet oil, to taste; mustard, to taste; vinegar, to taste

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

To Boil Prawns

Ingredients

Directions

Add a handful of coarse sea salt to a pot of boiling water.
Once the water is boiling vigorously, add the prawns.
Boil the prawns for 15 minutes.
Remove the prawns and place them on a sieve to drain.
Wipe the prawns with a dry cloth and set aside until completely cool.
Arrange a handful of curled parsley in the center of a dish.
Place one prawn on top and arrange the others around it with the tails facing outward.
Garnish with additional parsley.
Serve with a mixture of salt, cayenne, sweet oil, mustard, and vinegar.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

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