Name: Potted Meat Basket
Ingredients: potted meat; curled butter; flat cap wire; cayenne pepper; clarified butter

Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potted Meat Basket

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare potted meat according to your preferred recipe.
Mold the meat into your desired shape, pressing it well into the mold.
Smooth the bottom with a palette knife for even presentation.
Chill the molded meat in a cold place for a few hours until firm.
Loosen the edges to turn out the meat easily.
Shape a handle from flat cap wire and insert it into the meat.
Cover the meat on both sides with curled butter.
Garnish the basket as desired.

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.

Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).