Name: Ego Mince Pies
Ingredients: 6 hard-boiled eggs; 12 ounces suet; 6 ounces currants; grated rind and juice of 1 lemon; candied peel to taste; sugar to taste; salt to taste; spice to taste

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and 53,532 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ego Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the hard-boiled eggs finely.
Combine the chopped eggs with the suet.
Add the currants, lemon rind, lemon juice, candied peel, sugar, salt, and spices.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together8,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Lemon and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 53,532 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, sugar):

Orangebetter flavor fit
Vanillabetter flavor fit
Limebetter flavor fit
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).