Name: Sago Pudding
Ingredients: 1 oz sugar; 2 tablespoons strong beef tea; loin chop (bone, skin, and fat removed)

Why it works: Beef and tea work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 417 recipes. Both carry 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan, which smells thiamin, meat. The science ↓

Sago Pudding

Ingredients

1 oz sugar
2 tablespoons strong beef tea
loin chop (bone, skin, and fat removed)

Directions

Mince the meat finely and season with a little coarse sea salt and pepper.
Form the minced meat into a compact cake.
In a small pan, bring 2 tablespoons of strong beef tea to a boil.
Add the meat cake to the boiling beef tea.
Cook gently for about 10 minutes, turning the cake once or twice.
Serve on a hot plate with the beef tea poured around.

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.

Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).
Sugar + teatop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,204 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + beeftop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,435 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).