Why it works: Kale and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 147 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
German Kale
Ingredients
Directions
Wash and cut the kale.
Boil the kale in ½ pint of water until half cooked.
In another pot, cook a piece of beef, ham, or bacon until done.
Mix the cooked meat with the kale and sprinkle a little flour over it.
Mix well and let the fluid evaporate before serving.
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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Kale + flourtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together147 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Kale + beeftop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together70 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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 kale
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour):
- Chivefits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Kalethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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