Name: Pickled Brisket
Ingredients: brisket of beef; bay leaves; vinegar; butter

Why it works: Beef and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,847 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Pickled Brisket

Ingredients

brisket of beef
bay leaves
vinegar
butter

Directions

Salt and boil the brisket of beef until cooked.
Cut the cooled brisket into square pieces.
Place the brisket in a deep dish with bruised bay leaves.
Pour enough vinegar over the brisket to cover it, adding spices to taste.
Let it marinate for two weeks.
To serve, slice the brisket thicker than bacon rashers.
Toss the slices in a pan with hot butter.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Beef + vinegartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,895 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).