Why it works: Chestnut and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Goose Livee with Chestnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Scald the chestnuts until they are perfectly white.
Heat goose fat or butter in a porcelain-lined kettle.
Add the chestnuts and a little white sugar.
Glaze the chestnuts until they are light brown.
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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Chestnut + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together647 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Butter + chestnuttop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together965 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the chestnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar):
- Almondfits better
- Pecansfits better
- Filbertfits about as well
- Chestnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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