Name: Dinner for 8 Persons. November.
Ingredients: 1 soup, k la Paysanne; 1 turbot; lobster sauce; salmon cutlets, k la Maintenon; 1 leg of mutton; 1 lark pudding, k la Melton Mowbray; 1 rissoles, k la Milanaise; 2 pigs' feet

Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dinner for 8 Persons. November.

Dinner for 8 Persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup according to the Paysanne style.
Cook the turbot and serve with lobster sauce.
Prepare salmon cutlets using the Maintenon method.
Roast the leg of mutton until cooked through.
Make lark pudding following the Melton Mowbray recipe.
Prepare rissoles using the Milanaise method.
Cook the pigs' feet until tender.

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.

Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together248 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + salmontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together313 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Turbot + salmontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together129 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).