Name: Scalloped Veal
Ingredients: cold veal, baked or boiled; gravy; water from boiling bones and meat; cracker crumbs; milk; ham (optional)

Why it works: Meat and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Scalloped Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the cold veal finely.
Layer the chopped veal in a buttered pudding dish and moisten with gravy.
Add a layer of water from boiling bones and meat.
Spread a layer of cracker crumbs soaked in milk on top.
Repeat layering until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of cracker crumbs.
If using, chop ham and mix it with the veal for added 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.

Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Veal + meattop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,703 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Milk + hamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,089 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).