Name: Roast Squab
Ingredients: Squab (as many as needed); Coarse sea salt; Thin slice of fat salt pork (1 inch square for each bird); Pepper; Butter; Hot water; Watercress (for garnish)

Why it works: Squab and pork work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Roast Squab

Ingredients

Directions

Pluck, wash, and drain the squab.
Rub the inside of each squab with a little coarse sea salt.
Place the squab in a roasting pan in a row.
Add a thin slice of fat salt pork on top of each bird.
Sprinkle a little pepper over the squab.
Add a piece of butter and a little hot water to the pan.
Baste frequently, using just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.
When done, if there is not a tablespoonful of liquid for each bird, add a little water.
Transfer the squab to a hot platter, pour the liquid over them, and garnish with watercress.

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.

Squab + porktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + watercresstop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together318 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).