Name: Dinner in Summer
Ingredients: 1 Cod's head or Salmon; 2 Boiled Chickens; 1 fine Pudding; 1 Lobster; Beans; Bacon; Stewed Bread of Veal

Why it works: Chicken and beans are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,432 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Dinner in Summer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the main dishes

Prepare the cod's head or salmon by cleaning and cooking it to your preference.
Boil the chickens until fully cooked and tender.
Make a fine pudding according to your favorite recipe.
Cook the lobster by boiling it until it turns bright red.

Prepare the sides

Prepare beans by boiling or steaming until tender.
Cook bacon until crispy.
For stewed bread of veal, combine veal with bread and stew until flavors meld.

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.

Chicken + beanstop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,432 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,243 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).
Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together313 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together332 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster: Boiling turns its shell bright red as the proteins set and pigments change.
Bacon: Cooking until crispy renders fat and browns the surface for savory flavor and texture.
Veal: Slow stewing softens its connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, chicken, lobster, bread, veal):

Peasfits better
Beansthe original
Lima beansfits about as well
Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, chicken, lobster, bread, veal. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.