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Dr. Fordyce's Dinner

A hearty dinner featuring rump steak, optional capon or fish, served with bread, potatoes, ale, and port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Dr. Fordyce's Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Preheat a grill or griddle.

  2. Cook the rump steak on the grill until desired doneness.

  3. While the steak is cooking, prepare a half-boiled capon or a plate of fish if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve the steak with bread and potatoes.

  2. Accompany the meal with a tankard of ale and finish with a bottle of port.

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.

  1. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Bread + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Brandy + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Brandy + potatotop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides the main meat; grilling browns its surface and builds savoury flavour.
Potatoes
Supply starch that makes the meal filling alongside the meat.

The step that matters

Cook the rump steak on the grill until desired doneness. Rump is a lean cut, and heat past the desired point squeezes out moisture and toughens the muscle fibres. Pull it from the heat when it reaches the doneness you want.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, brandy, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, brandy, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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