Name: Giblet Pie
Ingredients: goose or duck giblets, cleaned; ½ cup water or well-seasoned gravy; 1 onion, chopped; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; a bunch of sweet herbs; steak of beef or veal, or 2-3 mutton steaks (if needed); additional gravy

Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,092 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

goose or duck giblets, cleaned
½ cup water or well-seasoned gravy
1 onion, chopped
¼ teaspoon black pepper
a bunch of sweet herbs
steak of beef or veal, or 2-3 mutton steaks (if needed)
additional gravy

Directions

Stew the cleaned giblets with water or gravy, onion, black pepper, and sweet herbs until nearly done.
Let the mixture cool.
If giblets are not enough to fill the dish, place a steak of beef or veal, or 2-3 mutton steaks at the bottom of the pie dish.
Add the gravy to the pie.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,474 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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, beef):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Tomatobetter flavor fit
Carrotabout as good a flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).