Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
A Plain Goose Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Season the quartered goose with pepper and salt.
Place the goose in a raised pie crust.
Cut the butter into pieces and distribute it on top of the goose.
Bake
Cover with the pie lid and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until well baked.
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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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Goose
- Forms the main filling and provides rich meat and fat that flavours the pie.
- Butter
- Adds fat that enriches the meat, keeping it moist and adding flavour as it melts.
- Raised pie crust
- Holds the filling in a sturdy shell while it bakes and forms the pie's structure.
The step that matters
Baking until well baked. The record gives no time, so the cook must judge doneness by eye. Under-baking leaves the goose and pastry raw, while over-baking dries the meat and can burn the crust.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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