Name: Pur&E of Sorrel
Ingredients: sorrel; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; gravy; croutons

Why it works: Sorrel and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 419 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pur&E of Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare sorrel by removing all fibrous parts.
Scald the sorrel, then dry it thoroughly.
Chop the sorrel and press it through a colander.
Dress the sorrel with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt, or add a little gravy.
Garnish with croutons and serve hot.

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.

Sorrel + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together419 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sorrel + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together652 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).