Name: Venison
Ingredients: venison; caul from a fat sheep; butter; flour; slices of bread; beef gravy; slices of lime

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the venison in lukewarm water and dry it.
Cover the venison with the caul from a fat sheep.
Roast the venison over a clear fire until cooked.
Cut slices of bread to match the number of venison pieces and toast or fry them until golden brown.
Baste the venison with butter and froth it with flour.
Place the roasted venison on the toasted bread and pour good beef gravy over it.
Garnish with slices of lime.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Flour + limetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,381 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together957 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour 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 lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, butter, flour, bread, beef):

Raisinfits better
Red currantfits better
Figfits better
Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, bread, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.