Name: Pea Loaf
Ingredients: grated Swiss cheese; tomatoes; apple salad; green leaves; beans; lentils; parsnips; potatoes

Why it works: Beans and lentils match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pea Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pea mixture as directed in the previous recipe.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Cover with grated Swiss cheese.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.
Serve with tomatoes, apple salad, and green leaves.

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.

Beans + lentilstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lentils + parsniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together42 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + parsniptop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together85 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (swiss cheese, tomato, beans, lentils, parsnip, potato):

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Cherryfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against swiss cheese, tomato, beans, lentils, parsnip, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.