Name: Larded Saddle of Venison
Ingredients: saddle of venison; string beans; turnips; green peas; stuffed artichoke bottoms; truffles

Why it works: Turnip and artichoke match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 140 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Larded Saddle of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Trim and cut the saddle of venison shorter than usual.
Lard the venison as desired.
Carve the venison into slices, cutting downward through both fat and lean.
Prepare a garnish of string beans, small cups of turnips filled with green peas, or stuffed artichoke bottoms, and truffles.
Serve the venison very hot.

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.

Turnip + artichoketop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together140 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beans + artichoketop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Beans + turniptop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together400 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beans + peastop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together949 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Peas + artichoketop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together180 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, beans, turnip, artichoke, truffle):

Chestnutfits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original
Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, beans, turnip, artichoke, truffle. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.