Name: Pigeons with Ham
Ingredients: fine fat tame pigeons; chestnuts (or boiled sweet potatoes); butter; cold ham; pepper; fresh vine leaves; twine

Why it works: Chestnut and pepper work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pigeons with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the chestnuts until soft, then peel and mash them smooth.
Mix the mashed chestnuts with finely minced and pounded cold ham.
Pepper the insides of the pigeons lightly, then fill them with the stuffing.
Cover the pigeons with thin slices of cold ham and wrap them in fresh vine leaves, tying with twine.
Roast the pigeons on a spit for 45 minutes.
Carefully remove the strings and serve the pigeons wrapped in ham and vine leaves.

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.

Chestnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together826 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Chestnut + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together965 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

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