Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
A Goose Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pie crust using the flour to create walls for the pie.
Bone the goose and the fowl, and boil the pickled tongue until tender enough to peel.
Cut off the root of the tongue and season the goose and fowl with mace, pepper, and salt.
Layer the fowl inside the goose, place the tongue in the fowl, and keep the goose in its whole form.
Top with butter and cover with the pie lid.
Serve hot or cold; it keeps well and makes a lovely side dish.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, chicken, pepper, butter):
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Turmericfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, chicken, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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