Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Croustade of Bread, with a Ragout of Leverets in Their Blood
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the crust from the loaf and cut the crumb into a goblet shape.
Place the loaf in a pan with clarified butter and heat gently until browned.
Drain the loaf on a napkin and scoop out the crumb, leaving a ⅙ inch thick layer.
Fill the inside with force-meat of game and bake until firm.
In a separate pan, melt clarified butter and cook the leveret fillets until firm, then drain off the butter.
Add boiling Spanish sauce and essence of kept game to the fillets, stirring to coat without returning to heat.
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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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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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