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 ↓
Venison Stewed
Ingredients
Directions
Cut venison into small steaks.
Make a dressing with bread crumbs, chopped onion, and butter if preferred.
Spread the dressing on each steak.
Put the steaks into boiling water and stew until cooked.
Thicken the gravy with flour.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,676 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together957 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, bread, butter, flour):
- Shallotfits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Potatofits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against venison, bread, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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