Name: Lobster Patties
Ingredients: 1 lobster; ½ cup Béchamel sauce; a little anchovy; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; puff pastry; 1 egg

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Roll out the puff pastry very thin and cut out rounds about 3 inches in diameter.
Cut out additional rounds from thicker pastry to create rings.
Place the thin rounds on a baking sheet and join two rings on top of each round using egg white.
Fill the center with flour or bread and place a small round on top; brush with egg yolk.
Bake until lightly colored.
Mince the lobster finely and mix with Béchamel sauce and seasoning; heat for 5 minutes.
Remove the flour or bread from the pastry cases, fill with the lobster mixture, and replace the tops.

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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).