Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Beef — Continued
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, combine the shallot, orange rind, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper. Simmer for 4-5 minutes.
Add the brown sauce and bring to a boil.
Mix the beef with the sauce, add lemon juice, and boil again.
Place the mixture in the center of a dish, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and arrange the fried bread around it.
Top each piece of fried bread with a poached egg and garnish with scallops of tongue.
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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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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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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Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,019 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,523 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, nutmeg, pepper, sauce, lemon, bread, butter):
- Limefits better
- Avocadofits better
- Cherryfits about as well
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, nutmeg, pepper, sauce, lemon, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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