Name: Gleaning a Goose
Ingredients: 1 onion; 1 teaspoon sage; 3 pints bread crumbs; 1 teaspoon parsley, chopped; 2 tablespoons butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 small thick-skinned lemon (optional)

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Remove pin feathers and singe the goose.
Make a strong suds with hot water and ivory soap.
Scrub the skin thoroughly with the hot suds using a small stiff bristle brush.
Rinse repeatedly with cold water and pat dry with a soft cloth.
Mix onion, sage, bread crumbs, parsley, butter, salt, and pepper for stuffing.
If not stuffing, peel the thin yellow rind from the lemon and place it in the body cavity.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,036 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together887 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together27,039 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sage + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).