Name: Strasbourg Puddings
Ingredients: livers of 2 fat geese, chopped; equal weight of pork fat, minced very fine; 4 onions, boiled in gravy; dried sage, to taste; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; bread crumbs; cream

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Strasbourg Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the livers of 2 fat geese and mix with an equal weight of finely minced pork fat.
Add 4 boiled onions, dried sage, pepper, and coarse sea salt to the mixture.
Incorporate bread crumbs and cream until well combined.
Stuff the mixture into casings and prepare as usual.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pork, sage, pepper, bread, cream):

Capsicumfits about as well
Potatofits about as well
Spinachfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, sage, pepper, bread, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.