Name: Stewed Muscles
Ingredients: muscles; water; white wine; 1 blade of mace; whole pepper; butter; flour; bread

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Muscles

Ingredients

Directions

Open the muscles in their own liquor.
Drain off the liquor and wash the muscles in clear water.
In a pot, combine the liquor with an equal amount of water and white wine, a blade of mace, and a little whole pepper; bring to a boil.
Add the muscles and let them just boil up.
Thicken the mixture with a piece of butter and flour.
Serve with sippets of bread and the liquor.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 (white wine, pepper, butter, flour, bread):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Macethe original

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