Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Crepinettes of Partridges, a LA D’estaing
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the quenelle force-meat with the diced bacon, truffles, Espagnole, partridge glaze, and cayenne pepper.
Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto a floured surface and shape into egg-like forms.
Wrap each piece in a small piece of pig's caul and flatten slightly.
Dip in clarified butter and fry in a hot pan until lightly colored.
Drain on a napkin and arrange in a close circle on a serving dish.
Pour a mixture of half-partridge glaze, butter, and lemon juice over them and serve.
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 + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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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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Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together527 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, truffle, sauce, pepper, flour, butter):
- Lemonthe original
- Avocadofits about as well
- Limefits about as well
- Coconutfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, truffle, sauce, pepper, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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