Name: Modern Cookery
Ingredients: kidneys; fried sippets; champagne or claret (optional); port wine (optional); 2 teaspoons minced shallots; fresh herbs; butter

Why it works: Champagne and port wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the kidneys for 6 minutes.
Remove the kidneys and place them in a dish garnished with fried sippets.
Boil the sauce and pour it over the kidneys.
Optionally, add a couple of glasses of champagne or claret, or substitute with port wine.
Sprinkle minced shallots and fresh herbs over the kidneys.
Optionally, add small shallots that have been stewed in butter until tender.

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.

Champagne + port winetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Champagne + shallottop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together68 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,499 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Champagne + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together209 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).