Name: Savoy Sauce
Ingredients: Savoy cabbage; Beef; Strong cullis (or rich meat sauce)

Why it works: Beef and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,533 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Savoy Sauce

Ingredients

Savoy cabbage
Beef
Strong cullis (or rich meat sauce)

Directions

Cut the Savoy cabbage into quarters and blanch them.
Tie the quarters together and braise them with the beef until half cooked.
Remove the cabbage from the liquid, cut off the string, and place them in a saucepan.
Add the strong cullis and simmer until tender.

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.

Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together872 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + meattop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together292 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).