Name: Ox-liver Puddings
Ingredients: 1 cup grated liver; 1 cup grated bread; 1 cup minced suet; 1 teaspoon black pepper; 1 teaspoon Jamaica pepper; ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ⅓ cup rum

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ox-liver Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Boil the liver and grate it.
Mix equal quantities of grated liver, grated bread, and minced suet.
Season the mixture with black pepper, Jamaica pepper, nutmeg, salt, and rum.

Fill and cook

Half-fill the skins with the mixture.
Cook the puddings as you would other puddings.

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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together646 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together731 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).