Name: Lemon Sauce for Boiled Fowl
Ingredients: 1 large lemon; 1 fowl's liver; ½ cup hot melted butter

Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Sauce for Boiled Fowl

Ingredients

1 large lemon
1 fowl's liver
½ cup hot melted butter

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

Peel the lemon and cut it into slices.
Remove all the seeds and chop the slices into small pieces.
Boil the fowl's liver, then chop it finely.

Make and serve the sauce

Combine the chopped liver with the lemon pieces.
Pour the hot melted butter over the mixture and serve in a sauce boat with the fowl.

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.

Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,065 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lemon + livertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together768 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon: Adds sharp acidity and bright citrus aroma that cut through the rich butter.
Butter: Provides fat and a smooth, rich body that carries the flavour of the sauce.