Name: Ordinary Veal Stuffing
Ingredients: ½ lb beef suet; 2 oz raw lean ham; 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Why it works: Beef and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,729 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ordinary Veal Stuffing

Ingredients

½ lb beef suet
2 oz raw lean ham
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions

Chop the beef suet very finely.
Chop the raw lean ham finely.
Mix the suet and ham together.
Add lemon juice to the mixture.
Stuff the mixture inside the hare before cooking.

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.

Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,729 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Beef + lemontop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,278 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ham + lemontop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,788 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).