Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Geatin of Pheasant
Ingredients
Directions
Mince the breast of the roasted pheasant very finely.
Mix the minced pheasant with the béchamel sauce and a little lemon juice.
Pour the mixture into a dish.
Shake a few bread crumbs over the top.
Sprinkle with clarified butter and more bread crumbs.
Just before serving, color it with a salamander.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Pheasant + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together239 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together290 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, sauce, bread, butter):
- Applefits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Apricotfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, sauce, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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