Name: A Christmas Goose Pie
Ingredients: 1 pound butter; 1½ pints water; 4 pounds flour; 3 or 4 egg yolks; 1 smoked tongue; ¼ ounce powdered mace; 1 teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 nutmeg

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Christmas Goose Pie

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, melt the butter with the water, stirring until it boils. Skim off any impurities.
Sift the flour into a bowl and make a hole in the center. Pour in the hot melted butter.
Mix with a spoon to form a stiff paste, then knead on a floured surface until not sticky. Set aside to cool.
Prepare the goose and fowl by splitting them down the back and removing the bones.
Parboil the smoked tongue, peel it, and cut off the root.
Mix the nutmeg, mace, pepper, and salt, then season the goose and fowl with this mixture.
Roll out the paste to about 1 inch thick and cut into three pieces: two ovals for the top and bottom, and one long piece for the sides.
Brush the paste with beaten egg white. Attach the side piece to the bottom piece, pinching the edges together.
Ensure the crust can stand alone, then layer in the goose, fowl, and tongue, filling any gaps with pieces of meat.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 mace

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

Cinnamonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Allspicefits better
Macethe original

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