Name: Moulded Potted Meat
Ingredients: potted ham or any other meat; clarified butter; small salad; hard boiled eggs (optional); clear savoury jelly (optional)

Why it works: Ham and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Moulded Potted Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Press the potted meat into a mold tightly and smoothly.
Pour a thin layer of clarified butter on top and let it cool completely.
When ready to serve, dip a cloth in hot water and wrap it around the mold for a moment.
Gently loosen the meat with a thin knife and turn it onto a dish.
Glaze the meat lightly and arrange a border of small salad around it.
Optionally decorate with hard boiled eggs or surround with diced clear savoury jelly.

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.

Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).