Name: A Ragout of Cold Veal
Ingredients: cold veal, sliced; ½ cup butter; flour, for dredging; coarse sea salt, to taste; pepper, to taste; ⅓ cup tomato ketchup; cold ham, sliced

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Ragout of Cold Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the butter in a frying pan until hot.
Dredge the veal slices in flour and fry until nicely browned.
Remove the veal from the pan and add cold gravy, seasoning with salt, pepper, and tomato ketchup.
Add the sliced cold ham to the gravy and return the veal to the pan.
Heat everything together and serve hot.

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.

Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, pepper, ketchup, ham):

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Leekfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, pepper, ketchup, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.