Name: Fricassee of Pigeons
Ingredients: cold roast pigeons; good rich thickened gravy; onion; 12 small button mushrooms; mashed potatoes

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricassee of Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the cold roast pigeons into neat joints.
Stew the pigeon joints gently in thickened gravy flavored with onion for about 20 minutes.
Add the small button mushrooms and cook for a few more minutes.
Serve in a border of mashed potatoes.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together968 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).