Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Baked Fig
Ingredients
Directions
Truss the pig and place it in a roasting dish.
Anoint the pig thickly with the beaten egg white.
Do not baste or attend to it while cooking.
Broil the shoulders of a cold roast pig after removing the skin and trimming them.
Dip the shoulders in clarified butter or salad oil, then in seasoned bread crumbs mixed with salt and cayenne.
Broil until heated through and browned, then serve with tomato sauce or sauce Robert.
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 + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,013 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, bread, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Chivefits about as well
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, bread, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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