Name: Sausage Rolls
Ingredients: puff pastry; sausage meat; 1 egg (beaten)

Why it works: Meat and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,432 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sausage Rolls

Ingredients

puff pastry
sausage meat
1 egg (beaten)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Roll out the puff pastry to ½ inch thick.
Cut the pastry into squares, each 4 inches.

Assemble

Place a small roll of sausage meat on each square.
Wet the edges of the pastry and fold them over the sausage.
Seal the edges and brush with the beaten egg.

Bake

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

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.

Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry: Forms flaky, layered casing that puffs and crisps as it bakes.
Sausage meat: Provides the savory filling that cooks through inside the pastry.
Egg: Brushed on top to help the pastry turn golden brown and glossy.