Name: Game Pie
Ingredients: game (such as birds or hare); truffles (optional); whole mushrooms (optional); seasonings (to taste); port wine (to taste); gravy or stock; forcemeat (if using boned game)

Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Game Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cut up the game.
If available, add truffles and whole mushrooms.
Season to taste, omitting hard-boiled eggs.
Add a little port wine to your gravy or stock.
If using boned game, prepare forcemeat as layers instead.
Make a good stock from the bones to enhance the pie's flavor.

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.

Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together570 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Truffle + port winetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together61 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).