Name: Quenelles De Lapin
Ingredients: rabbits (boned); bread crumbs (soaked in milk, bouillon, or hot water); butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; nutmeg (grated); allspice (ground); 5 eggs (2 whole, 3 yolks, 3 whites)

Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Quenelles De Lapin

Ingredients

Directions

Bone the rabbits and extract all the nerves.
Pound the meat in a mortar and strain through a fine sieve.
Soak the bread crumbs in milk, bouillon, or hot water until well soaked.
Place the soaked bread crumbs in a clean cloth and squeeze out all the liquid.
Pound the bread crumbs and strain them like the meat.
Beat the butter until smooth and lump-free.
Mix equal quantities of meat, bread, and butter together.
Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and allspice.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Taste the mixture to check seasoning.
Whip the egg whites to a froth and fold them into the mixture gently.

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.

Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, bread, butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

Parsleyfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Sagefits about as well
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, bread, butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.