Why it works: Bread and egg 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 ↓
Salmi of Partridges a l’Essence
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the partridges and their sauce.
Heat the stewpan in a bain-marie without boiling.
Cut 15 circular croutons from day-old bread, about the size of a crown piece.
Cut smaller crescents from the top of each crouton using a smaller cutter.
Fry the croutons in hot lard until light brown.
Mix egg white with flour to form a thick paste.
Attach the paste to the croutons and arrange them in a circle or oval on the entree dish.
Ensure the crescents are centered and not lop-sided.
Place the dish in a warm area to dry the croutons.
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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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,383 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
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