Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Turtle Pasty
Ingredients
Directions
Clean the large back shell of the turtle thoroughly.
Make a rich puff pastry and roll it out thin.
Line the bottom and sides of the back shell with the pastry.
Stew the best pieces of turtle meat until tender, then let them cool.
Fill the shell with the prepared turtle meat.
Roll out a thicker piece of puff pastry for the lid.
Cover the pie with the lid and seal the edges neatly.
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.
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Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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