Name: Cold Duck Stewed with Peas
Ingredients: 1 pint cold duck gravy; 1 pint green peas; ⅓ cup red wine (optional); 1 small onion, chopped (or garlic, if preferred); additional gravy as needed; lemon peel, to taste; Cayenne pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; a little walnut catsup

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cold Duck Stewed with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the cold duck gravy and green peas in a stewpan.
Stew until the peas are soft.
If using, add the red wine and additional gravy to replace any lost liquid.
Season with lemon peel, Cayenne pepper, and salt.
Add the duck and warm gently under a close cover.
Stir in a little walnut catsup and serve 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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,149 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,005 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,039 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, red wine, lemon, pepper, walnut):

Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, red wine, lemon, pepper, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.