Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Sweet Patties
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the meat from the boiled calf’s foot.
Make the filling
Mix the chopped meat with the liquor, apples, candied peels, fresh peel and juice, nutmeg, egg yolk, brandy, and currants.
Fill small patty pans with the mixture.
Bake
Bake until golden brown.
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.
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,746 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Meat from a boiled calf’s foot
- Forms the main body of the filling, giving it substance and a rich, savoury base.
- Liquor from the calf’s foot
- Adds moisture and gelatinous body to the filling, keeping it from drying out.
- Apples
- Contribute moisture and natural sweetness to the filling.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the filling together and helps it set and brown during baking.
- Currants
- Add sweetness and chewy texture through the filling.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, apple, orange, lemon, nutmeg, egg, brandy):
- Figfits better
- Blackberryfits better
- Cranberryfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, orange, lemon, nutmeg, egg, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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