Name: Woodcock Pie
Ingredients: woodcock birds; butter; pepper; bacon fat; forcemeat (made from livers and other ingredients)

Why it works: Butter and liver are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,065 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Woodcock Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Clean and singe the woodcock birds, then remove the entrails.
Make a forcemeat using the livers and some bacon fat.
Split the woodcocks open at the backs.
Rub butter on the birds and dust them generously with pepper.
Broil the woodcocks over a clear fire until slightly cooked.
Allow the birds to cool, then lard them.
Assemble the birds into a raised pie using your preferred pie crust method.

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.

Butter + livertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,065 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + livertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,375 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).