Name: Butcher’s Meat
Ingredients: beef; writing paper; butter; flour; mutton; lamb; veal; pork; wild fowls

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Butcher’s Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Regulate the fire strength based on the size of the meat.
For small joints, use a quick fire; for large joints, use a substantial fire.
Do not salt the meat before roasting to retain the gravy.
For beef, skewer writing paper over the fat and baste while roasting.
When the smoke draws to the fire, remove the paper, baste again, and dredge with flour.
Roast mutton and lamb with a clear, quick fire.
For veal, ensure it is a fine light brown; baste with butter and dredge with flour when nearly done.
For pork, ensure it is well done to avoid nausea.

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.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together896 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Lamb + porktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together623 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mutton + lambtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).