Name: Re-roasting
Ingredients: cold beef, mutton, veal, or pork; gravy from first cooking or strong stock; cayenne pepper; fresh fried potatoes or a la maitre d'hotel potatoes; spinach; warmed-up greens or cabbage

Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Re-roasting

Ingredients

cold beef, mutton, veal, or pork
gravy from first cooking or strong stock
cayenne pepper
fresh fried potatoes or a la maitre d'hotel potatoes
spinach
warmed-up greens or cabbage

Directions

Cut the cold meat into neat slices about ⅓ inch thick.
Place the slices in a dish in front of the fire.
Cover each slice with gravy or strong stock.
Sprinkle lightly with cayenne pepper.
Turn and baste with gravy until thoroughly hot.
Serve immediately on a very hot dish.

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.

Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Spinach + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together190 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + spinachtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together490 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the cabbage

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Onionfits better
Cabbagethe original

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