Name: Grilled Grubs with Bread Crust
Ingredients: grubs (such as palm weevil or similar); rasped bread; coarse sea salt; black pepper; nutmeg; orange juice

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Grilled Grubs with Bread Crust

Ingredients

Directions

Skewer the grubs on a small wooden spit.
Roast them over a fire until hot.
Mix rasped bread with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and nutmeg.
Dust the grubs with the bread mixture while roasting.
Serve the roasted grubs with a drizzle of orange juice.

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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

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