Why it works: Beef and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,220 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Puff Paste Made with Beef Suet
Ingredients
Directions
Pick out the skin and sinews from the beef suet and chop it very fine.
Place the chopped suet in a mortar and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
Pound the suet while gradually adding more olive oil until it is soft and easy to work with.
In a bowl, combine the prepared suet with 12 ounces of flour and mix well.
Roll out the mixture according to the puff paste method.
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.
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Beef + olivetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,220 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Olive + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,871 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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