Name: Dresden Patties, or Croustades
Ingredients: French rolls; milk or thin cream; egg; minced meat or stewed mushrooms or oysters; apricot marmalade or cherry jam or other preserves

Why it works: Milk and apricot work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dresden Patties, or Croustades

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the crust from one or two French rolls and slice off the ends.
Divide the rolls into patties and hollow them in the center.
Dip the patties in milk or thin cream and place them on a drainer.
Pour a spoonful of milk over them at intervals without breaking them.
Brush the patties with egg and sprinkle the crust of the rolls over them.
Fry the patties until golden and drain well.
Fill the patties with minced meat, stewed mushrooms, or oysters, and serve hot.
For dessert, fill with warm apricot marmalade, cherry jam, or other preserves.

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.

Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together826 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + meattop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,703 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + apricottop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,712 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).