Name: Venison Puffs
Ingredients: cold venison, shaved thin; currant jelly; rich brown gravy; light puff pastry; 1 egg white, for brushing

Why it works: Venison and currant work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 443 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Venison Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cut the cold venison into small pieces.
Mix the venison with a little currant jelly and rich brown gravy.
Roll out the puff pastry very thin and cut it into pieces.
Place some of the meat mixture on each piece of pastry and fold to form puffs.
Brush the tops with egg white.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

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.

Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together443 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Venison + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together159 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,734 recipes

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