Name: To Pot Veal or Chicken with Ham
Ingredients: cold veal or white chicken; ham; butter; coarse sea salt; pepper; chopped parsley

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Pot Veal or Chicken with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Pound the cold veal or chicken and season it as desired.
Layer the pounded meat with layers of shredded ham in a small pot.
Press each layer down and cover with melted butter.
Serve whole or sliced as a corner dish.
Store in small pots for best preservation.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,766 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).