Name: Meat Puddings
Ingredients: pepper; salt; 1 minced shallot; beef; strong beef gravy; mushroom ketchup; sliced onions (optional)

Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Meat Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Season the beef with pepper, salt, and minced shallot.
Boil the beef for 2 to 3 hours.
Prepare strong beef gravy and add a little mushroom ketchup for flavor.
Make a hole in the pudding paste and pour the gravy into it.
For a family pudding, omit the oysters and kidneys, and add layers of sliced onions if desired.

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.

Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, shallot, beef, mushroom, ketchup):

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, shallot, beef, mushroom, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.