Name: A Good Meat Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup minced cold lamb or veal; ½ cup bread, soaked in boiling milk; 1 beaten egg

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

A Good Meat Cake

Ingredients

1 cup minced cold lamb or veal
½ cup bread, soaked in boiling milk
1 beaten egg

Directions

Mince the cold lamb or veal very fine.
Soak a large slice of bread in boiling milk.
Mash the soaked bread and mix it with the minced meat.
Add the beaten egg and combine well.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Lamb + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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