Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Mock Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the bone from the fresh shoulder of pork.
Make a stuffing by mixing the crumbs, salt, poultry seasoning, and butter.
Add hot water to achieve the right consistency; include onion if desired.
Fill the cavity of the pork with the stuffing and sew it up like a turkey.
Sprinkle flour and celery salt over the pork.
Add 1½ pints of hot water.
Bake for 3 to 4 hours, depending on the size.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,214 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,371 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, bread, butter, celery):
- Potatofits better
- Tomatofits better
- Mustardfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, butter, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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