Name: Another Venison Pasty
Ingredients: meat from a breast or shoulder of venison, cut into small pieces; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 1 teaspoon beaten mace; thin slices of butter

Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Another Venison Pasty

Ingredients

meat from a breast or shoulder of venison, cut into small pieces
coarse sea salt
black pepper
1 teaspoon beaten mace
thin slices of butter

Directions

Season the venison pieces with pepper, salt, and beaten mace.
Place the seasoned meat in a dish.
Layer thin slices of butter over the top of the meat.
Wet the edges of the dish.
Cover the dish with a pastry lid.

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 + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,405 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, butter):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Sagefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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Meatballs37 recipes

Mince Meat37 recipes

Meat Cakes35 recipes

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Another Venison Pasty