Name: Curried Sweetbreads
Ingredients: 6 large onions; 2 ounces butter; 2 sour apples; 1 pint strong stock; 2 teaspoons curry paste; 1 teaspoon curry powder

Why it works: Butter and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curried Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Peel and slice the onions. Fry them in a stew-pan with butter until browned.
Peel, core, and slice the apples. Add them to the onions in the stew-pan.
Pour in the stock and boil until the apples are soft.
Stir in the curry paste and curry powder.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve to achieve a smooth sauce.

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 + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,206 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).