Name: Pigeons Aux Asperges En Petits Pois
Ingredients: 1½ pints young asparagus, cut into small bits; 3-4 young pigeons; salt; sugar (about the size of a walnut); savory (to taste); 2 cloves

Why it works: Walnut and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,592 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pigeons Aux Asperges En Petits Pois

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the asparagus in several waters.
Boil the asparagus for 15 minutes.
Transfer the asparagus to cold water and let drain.
Add the pigeons to the asparagus and follow the previous recipe's method.
Add savory and cloves to the herbs 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Asparagus + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together70 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Asparagus + clovetop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together192 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together7,147 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together17,182 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove share little aroma chemistry, yet 17,182 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, walnut, clove):

Beetrootbetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Lettucebetter flavor fit
Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, walnut, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).