Name: Sage and Onion Sauce
Ingredients: oysters; beef extract; salt; pepper; boiling water; suet crust

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sage and Onion Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Drain the mushrooms and oysters, and cut the meat into neat pieces.
Line a basin with the suet crust, filling it with layers of meat, oysters, and mushrooms, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.
Make a strong gravy using beef extract and boiling water, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper, and pour it over the meat.
Cover with a lid of crust, greased paper, or a pudding cloth, and steam or boil for about 2 hours.
Add more gravy before serving.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Oyster + beeftop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,663 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).