Name: Lobster Patties
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon lobster meat, diced; 6 mushrooms, chopped; 1 truffle, chopped; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon flour; ½ cup cream; Salt, to taste; Cayenne pepper, to taste

Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan.
Add 1 teaspoon of flour and cook without browning.
Slowly add stock, stirring until smooth.
Stir in the cream and let it thicken.
Add the lobster meat, chopped truffle, and mushrooms.
Season with salt and cayenne, then simmer for 5 minutes.
Fill rich puff pastry shells with the mixture and serve immediately.

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.

Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).