Name: Meat Pie
Ingredients: 1 lb meat, thinly sliced; small pieces of kidney and fat; well-seasoned flour; water (for gravy); ½ lb all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 8 oz margarine or a mix of lard and margarine; a small quantity of lemon juice

Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Meat Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the meat into thin slices and roll small pieces of kidney and fat into it.
Cover the rolls with well-seasoned flour and pack them loosely into a deep dish.
Add a little water to create gravy.
In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, margarine, lemon juice, and enough water to form a good short crust or flaky pastry.
Cover the dish with the pastry, decorate it, and leave a hole in the center for steam to escape.

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.

Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Meat + lemontop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,817 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,529 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).