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Dinner Bills

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and lamb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 896 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Dinner Bills

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the fish and serve as the first course.

  2. Boil or roast the potatoes.

  3. Roast the beef until cooked through.

  4. Steam or boil the cauliflower.

  5. Bake or glaze the ham.

  6. Cook the green peas until tender.

  7. Roast the ducks until golden brown.

  8. Prepare trifles as a dessert.

  9. Roast the lamb until tender.

  10. Prepare pudding potatoes by boiling or baking.

  11. Cook the greens until wilted.

  12. Make roast mutton soup as a starter.

  13. Cook the round beef until desired doneness.

  14. Steam or boil the broccoli.

  15. Cook the turnips until tender.

  16. Prepare tartlets for dessert.

  17. Make blancmange as a sweet dish.

  18. Prepare marrow pastry for a savory dish.

  19. Bake the pudding until set.

  20. Roast the hare until cooked through.

  21. Prepare jelly for dessert.

  22. Make cheese cakes for a sweet treat.

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.

  1. Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Cauliflower + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Lamb + muttontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, potato, beef, ham, peas, lamb, mutton):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, beef, ham, peas, lamb, mutton. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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