Name: Partridge Pie
Ingredients: 2 partridges, cut into neat joints; 2 to 3 ounces of butter; 1 quart of reduced consomme; ½ pint of sliced mushrooms; 12 diced truffles; pepper; coarse sea salt; ⅓ cup of sherry

Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Partridge Pie

Ingredients

Directions

In a sauté pan, melt the butter and fry the partridge pieces until lightly colored.
Transfer the partridge to a stew pan and add the consomme, mushrooms, truffles, pepper, salt, and sherry.
Stew the mixture gently for 30 minutes until tender.
Arrange the cooked partridge in a pie crust, pouring the cooking liquid over it, leaving the center hollow.
Fill the hollow with the remaining mushrooms and truffles.

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 + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,176 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).