Name: Vol-au-vents a LA Toulouse
Ingredients: 3 necks of meat; 2 whole eggs; 2 egg yolks; pepper; coarse sea salt; bread crumbs

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Vol-au-vents a LA Toulouse

Ingredients

Directions

Cut off the scrags from the necks, leaving 8 bones in each.
Carefully saw away the chine bones without cutting the fillets.
Trim the tops of the ribs to ensure uniform cutlet size.
Cut the neck into cutlets, ensuring each has a bone.
Pat each cutlet with a chopper to shape them.
Remove excess fat and flesh, leaving half an inch of bone exposed.
Arrange cutlets in a circle on a plate.
Crack the whole eggs and separate the yolks, adding them to the eggs with pepper and salt, then beat together.
Dip each cutlet into the egg mixture, then into the bread crumbs, ensuring they are not too wet.
Pat the cutlets into shape with a knife.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).