Name: A Nice Breakfast Dish
Ingredients: cold beef or lamb; pulverized cloves (for beef); summer savory (for lamb); pepper; coarse sea salt; potatoes; cream; butter; egg

Why it works: Clove and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Nice Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Mince cold beef or lamb. If using beef, add a pinch of pulverized cloves; if lamb, add a pinch of summer savory. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Place the seasoned meat in a baking dish.
Boil and mash the potatoes, mixing them with cream, butter, and a little salt.
Spread the potato mixture over the meat.
Beat an egg with a little cream or milk and spread it over the potatoes.
Bake until warmed through and the potatoes are browned.

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.

Clove + summer savorytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together896 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together671 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, summer savory, lamb, pepper, potato, cream, butter):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, summer savory, lamb, pepper, potato, cream, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.