Why it works: Pork and watercress work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓
Becasses Et Becassines Roties I
Ingredients
Directions
Do not draw the birds.
Roast the birds as you would quail, allowing about the same cooking time.
Wrap each bird in a thin slice of fat pork.
Place each bird in a roasting pan on a piece of toast to catch the juices.
Remove the pork after cooking.
Garnish with watercress and serve with a salad.
Serve currant jelly on the side, if desired.
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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Pork + watercresstop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together318 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
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Watercress + curranttop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together26 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + curranttop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together468 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, watercress):
- Avocadofits better
- Limefits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, watercress. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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