Name: Braised Goose with Chestnuts
Ingredients: 1 young goose; 1 teaspoon butter; 1 onion, sliced; 1 carrot, sliced; a bunch of sweet herbs; ⅓ cup white wine

Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Goose with Chestnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Draw, singe, and truss the goose.
Melt the butter in a saucepan large enough for the goose.
Brown the goose lightly on all sides in the hot butter.
Add the sliced onion, carrot, sweet herbs, and white wine.
Let this cook off.

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.

Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,535 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Carrot + white winetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).