Name: Small Vegetable Crusts, Macedoine Style
Ingredients: 1 dozen small Timbal moulds; Butter for greasing; Flour for dusting; Paté paste; 1 egg yolk; Water; Macedoine of vegetables (peas, beans, asparagus tops, carrots); Reduced Allemande or Cream sauce

Why it works: Beans and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 292 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Small Vegetable Crusts, Macedoine Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease the Timbal moulds with butter and dust with flour.
Roll out the paté paste and line the moulds with it, filling them with flour.
Cover with a layer of paste, create a border, and baste with a mixture of egg yolk and a few drops of water.
Bake in the oven until cooked, then cut out the covers without damaging the borders.
Remove the flour and baste the inside and outside of the crusts with egg yolks.
Place the crusts back in the oven to dry.
Garnish with a Macedoine of cooked vegetables, either mixed or separately.
Before filling, add a reduced Allemande or Cream sauce to the vegetables.

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.

Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together292 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Peas + asparagustop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together808 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,443 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together949 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Asparagus + carrottop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together571 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, peas, beans, asparagus, cream):

Leekfits better
Spinachfits better
Chivefits better
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, peas, beans, asparagus, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.