Name: Veal Olives, Roasted
Ingredients: Olives prepared with forcemeat; Flour (for dusting); 1 egg (for dipping); Bread crumbs (for coating); Good brown gravy or mushroom sauce (for serving); Sliced cucumber (for serving)

Why it works: Olive and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Veal Olives, Roasted

Ingredients

Olives prepared with forcemeat
Flour (for dusting)
1 egg (for dipping)
Bread crumbs (for coating)
Good brown gravy or mushroom sauce (for serving)
Sliced cucumber (for serving)

Directions

Skewer the olives and bind them firmly to keep the forcemeat inside.
Dust the olives with flour, or dip them in beaten egg and roll them in bread crumbs.
Place the olives on a spit and roast over a clear fire.
Baste the olives liberally until cooked, about 45 minutes.
Serve with good brown gravy or mushroom sauce and sliced cucumber.

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.

Olive + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Olive + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,571 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + cucumbertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together667 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, flour, egg, bread, mushroom):

Shallotfits better
Spinachfits better
Asparagusfits better
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, flour, egg, bread, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.