Name: Rabbits, &C
Ingredients: ½ lb bacon, sliced thin; less than ½ pint ale; mushroom ketchup; 1 glass port wine; mushroom powder (optional); butter; flour; 1 teaspoon lemon-pickle; 1 teaspoon browning

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Rabbits, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the fat from the hare.
Layer the hare and bacon in a jar.
Add ale and cover the jar tightly.
Place the jar in a kettle of cold water with a tile on top.
Boil for 3 hours for young hare or 4-5 hours for old hare.
Remove the jar and discard any unmelted bacon.
In a stewpan, mix hare with mushroom ketchup, port wine, mushroom powder, butter, and flour to thicken the gravy.
Add lemon-pickle and browning to enhance flavor.

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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together570 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,499 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, ketchup, port wine, butter, flour):

Red currantfits about as well
Applefits about as well
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, ketchup, port wine, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.