Name: Devilled Biscuits
Ingredients: biscuits; butter; black pepper; chopped anchovies or fine cheese; mustard; cayenne pepper

Why it works: Biscuit and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 121 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Devilled Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

Butter both sides of the biscuits.
Sprinkle black pepper on the biscuits.
Make a paste with chopped anchovies or fine cheese.
Spread the paste on the biscuits.
Add mustard and cayenne pepper to taste.
Grill the biscuits until heated through.

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.

Biscuit + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together121 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).