Why it works: Artichoke and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Chicken or Rabbit Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
Cover the bottom of a pie dish with puff pastry.
Spread a thin layer of forcemeat around the sides of the dish.
Layer the seasoned chicken pieces in the dish.
Add the sweetbread, truffles, morels, artichoke bottoms, and chopped egg yolks on top.
Pour in enough water to nearly fill the pie.
Cover the pie with puff pastry and bake until golden brown.
Once baked, pour in a rich gravy thickened with flour and butter.
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.
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Artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together466 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + artichoketop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,170 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,209 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Truffle + artichoketop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together240 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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