Name: Broiled Squabs
Ingredients: squabs; soft butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; buttered paper; buttered toast; currant jelly or other tart jelly

Why it works: Butter and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Broiled Squabs

Ingredients

Directions

Rub squabs with soft butter.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Fold squabs in buttered paper to prevent burning.
Broil until cooked through.
Serve on buttered toast with currant jelly or other tart jelly.

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 + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Squab + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together48 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Squab + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together35 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,345 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).