Name: Roast Goose Stuffing
Ingredients: 6 potatoes, boiled, peeled, and mashed; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon black pepper; 1 tablespoon dried sage; 2 tablespoons onion juice; 2 tablespoons butter; Globe A-1 flour for dredging

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Goose Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Boil and mash the potatoes until fine and light.
Mix in salt, pepper, sage, onion juice, and butter until well combined.
Truss the goose and dredge it with salt, pepper, and flour before stuffing.
Stuff the goose with the potato mixture.

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.

Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together386 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 (potato, pepper, sage, butter, flour):

Chivefits better
Parsnipfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, sage, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.