Name: Ducks with a Puree of Carrots
Ingredients: 8 or 9 large carrots; 2 tablespoons butter; ½ cup consomme or beef stock; Salt to taste; A small pinch of sugar; Good sauce à la espagnole (see Sauces); Juice of ½ lemon; Mushrooms (optional)

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ducks with a Puree of Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Scrape and quarter the carrots, then boil them until very tender.
Drain the carrots in a sieve, then return them to the heat with the butter.
Mash the carrots until smooth, then add ½ cup of consomme and stir until dry.
Add more consomme as needed, then mix in 2-3 tablespoons of good plain sauce, salt, and sugar.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve into a large dish.
Before serving, heat the puree in a stewpan, stirring with a wooden spoon.
If the puree is not strong enough, add a bit of glaze.
Pour the puree into a serving dish and place the stewed ducks in the center.

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.

Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,351 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,796 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,606 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 lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, beef, sugar, sauce, mushroom):

Coconutfits about as well
Plumfits about as well
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, beef, sugar, sauce, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.