Name: Fillets of Duckling. Macedoine
Ingredients: Ducklings; Vegetables; Salt; Pepper; Powdered sage; Thyme; Flour; Butter; Bigarade sauce

Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fillets of Duckling. Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Singed, drawn, and washed ducklings, then steam for 10 minutes.
Cool and cut into 4 fillets.
Roast backbones with vegetables until browned.
Moisten with Bigarade sauce, boil, and strain over cooked macedoine of vegetables.
Season fillets with salt, pepper, sage, and thyme.
Roll fillets in flour and arrange in a buttered baking pan.
Roast and baste until brown and frothy.
Serve on a crouton garnished with macedoine in sauce.

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.

Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,485 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sage, flour, butter, sauce):

Marjoramfits about as well
Parsleyfits about as well
Thymethe original
Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sage, flour, butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.