Name: Sea Pie
Ingredients: 2 lbs buttock steak; 2 onions; 1 small carrot; Pepper to taste; Coarse sea salt to taste; ½ lb flour; 5 oz suet; 1 teaspoon baking powder

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the buttock steak into thin pieces.
Peel and slice the onions as thinly as possible.
Wash, scrape, and slice the carrot into thin pieces.
Season the meat slices with pepper and salt.
Layer the meat and vegetables in a 2-quart saucepan, sprinkling some vegetables between layers.
Add enough cold water to just cover the meat.
Bring the saucepan to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer.
Chop the suet finely after removing the skin.
Sprinkle a little flour over the suet to prevent sticking.
In a bowl, mix ¾ lb flour with ¼ teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking powder.
Rub the chopped suet into the flour mixture with your hands.
Add enough cold water to form a stiff paste.
Flour a board and turn the paste out onto it.
Roll out the paste to fit the size of the saucepan.

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.

Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,029 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32,460 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).