Name: An Excellent Relish After Dinner
Ingredients: soup or gravy from any dish; pepper to taste; ⅓ cup vinegar; ⅓ cup wine; ⅓ cup catsup; coarse sea salt to taste; turkey legs, liver, and gizzard (or veal kidney, or any preferred meat)

Why it works: Vinegar and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,493 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

An Excellent Relish After Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

Pour soup or gravy into a stew dish.
Add pepper, vinegar, wine, catsup, and salt; season well.

Prepare the meat

Broil the turkey legs, liver, gizzard, or veal kidney.
Cut the broiled meat into small pieces.

Combine and serve

Add the meat to the gravy and stew it at the table.

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.

Vinegar + winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,493 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + turkeytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,636 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + winetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,066 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Wine + turkeytop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together70 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that brightens and balances the rich, savoury gravy.
Wine: Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.
Catsup: Adds sweetness and tomato acidity to the sauce.
Turkey legs, liver, and gizzard: Provide the main meat, which is broiled first for browning and then stewed in the gravy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.