Name: Goose’s Fat-liver, Strasburg Fashion
Ingredients: 1 large fat liver; 2 tablespoons Madeira wine; 4 tablespoons chopped onion; 2-3 chopped truffles; 2 handfuls fresh chopped mushrooms; rasped bacon; salt; spices

Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Goose’s Fat-liver, Strasburg Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the gall and any green parts from the liver.
Lard the liver with fillets of fresh truffles and season with salt and spices.
Place the liver in a basin and baste it with Madeira wine.
In a pan, fry the rasped bacon with chopped onion until soft.
Add the chopped mushrooms and cook until their moisture is reduced.
Stir in the chopped truffles, season, and remove from heat.

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.

Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Madeira wine + truffletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together195 recipes
Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together395 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,420 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, madeira wine, truffle, mushroom):

Shallotfits better
Asparagusfits better
Chivefits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, madeira wine, truffle, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.