Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Season the chicken pieces with white pepper, salt, mace, nutmeg, and Cayenne.
Layer the chicken, ham, force-meat balls, and hard-boiled eggs in a baking dish.
Add a little water if baking in a dish; omit water if using a raised crust.
Prepare a gravy with knuckle of veal or scrag with shank bones of mutton, seasoned with herbs and onion.
Pour the gravy over the pie after it comes out of the oven.
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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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,695 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,375 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Ham + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,095 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,526 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, nutmeg, ham, meat, egg):
- Clovefits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Allspicefits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mace, nutmeg, ham, meat, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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