Name: Roasted Guinea Fowls
Ingredients: small game birds (such as partridges, pheasants, quail, grouse, prairie fowls, woodcock, snipe, plover, rail, and reed birds); white pepper; butter

Why it works: Pheasant and quail share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Roasted Guinea Fowls

Ingredients

small game birds (such as partridges, pheasants, quail, grouse, prairie fowls, woodcock, snipe, plover, rail, and reed birds)
white pepper
butter

Directions

Draw and clean the birds.
Dust lightly with white pepper.
Place in a pan with a reasonable amount of butter.
Roast until done.
Divide the gravy among cans, place the birds inside, and seal them.
Process at 250°F (120°C): 55 minutes for 1 lb. cans, 65 minutes for 2 lb. cans, and 75 minutes for larger cans.

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.

Pheasant + quailtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together48 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together512 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together511 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Quail + white peppertop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).