Why it works: Veal and liver match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓
Forcemeat for Cold Pasties
Ingredients
Directions
Combine fish, game, and meat in a bowl.
Add chopped liver, mushrooms, and onions.
Mix in suet, veal, and fowl.
Season with sage and chestnut.
Form into a paste and use for filling cold pasties.
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.
-
Veal + livertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together392 recipes
Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).
-
Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together496 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Meat + shrimptop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together584 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
-
Oyster + shrimptop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together531 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Fish + meattop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together479 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Potato Croquettes255 recipes
Fried Fish120 recipes
Fish Croquettes81 recipes
Potato Rolls78 recipes