Name: Pate Pk Fois Canapes
Ingredients: 6 rounds of stale bread (2.5 inches in diameter); 1 medium jar of pâté de foie gras; 2 teaspoons chopped gherkins; 2 teaspoons chopped Spanish peppers; ½ teaspoon chopped olives or chopped Spanish onion; ½ teaspoon lemon juice; Chopped Spanish peppers for garnish; Chopped green peppers for garnish

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pate Pk Fois Canapes

Ingredients

6 rounds of stale bread (2.5 inches in diameter)
1 medium jar of pâté de foie gras
2 teaspoons chopped gherkins
2 teaspoons chopped Spanish peppers
½ teaspoon chopped olives or chopped Spanish onion
½ teaspoon lemon juice
Chopped Spanish peppers for garnish
Chopped green peppers for garnish

Directions

Prepare the canapés

Cut the stale bread into 6 rounds, each 2.5 inches in diameter.
Toast the bread on one side.
In a bowl, mix the pâté de foie gras, gherkins, Spanish peppers, olives or onion, and lemon juice.
Spread the mixture on the toasted side of the bread rounds.

Garnish and serve

Sprinkle chopped Spanish peppers on top.
Serve on small plates with chopped green peppers arranged around the edge.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread: Provides a firm, dry base that holds the spread without going soggy.
Pâté de foie gras: Supplies rich fat and savoury flavour that forms the main body of the spread.
Gherkins: Add sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the pâté.
Lemon juice: Brightens the spread with acidity and balances the fattiness of the foie gras.