Name: Forcemeat Puddings
Ingredients: butter for greasing; minced veal or chicken; minced duck or game; beaten egg; breadcrumbs; butter or cooking fat for frying

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Forcemeat Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Grease small moulds with butter and line them with minced veal or chicken.
Fill the center with minced duck or game, then cover with more minced veal or chicken.
Smooth the top with a knife and poach in boiling water for 10 minutes.
Remove from water and let cool slightly, then take the puddings out of the moulds.
Dip each pudding in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.
Fry in butter or cooking fat 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.

Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,845 recipes

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