Name: Veal Pate's
Ingredients: leftover veal from Sunday; crisped ham; gravy; oyster liquor; butter; fine dry crumbs

Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Veal Pate's

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the leftover veal and crisped ham, reserving some for salad.
Season the meat well and warm up the gravy after removing the fat.
Mix a little oyster liquor into the gravy and stir in the minced meat.
Heat the mixture almost to boiling, then cover and keep warm.
Line the pans with reserved pastry from Saturday and butter the tins well.
Bake the pastry shells until golden, then slip them out while hot.
Arrange the shells on a warm dish and fill with the meat mixture.
Sprinkle the tops with fine dry crumbs and place in the oven for a minute before serving.

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.

Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ham + oystertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together360 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Veal + oystertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together988 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).