Name: Sea-pie
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 turnip, sliced; 1 lb flour; 1 lb suet, chopped; Water; Salt and pepper to taste; ½ pint cold water

Why it works: Turnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sea-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the steak into small pieces and place it in the bottom of a stew pan.
Add the sliced turnip and season with salt and pepper.
Pour in ½ pint of cold water and cover the pan to heat while preparing the crust.
In a bowl, mix the flour, suet, baking powder, and a pinch of salt with just enough water to form a stiff paste.
Roll out the paste to fit the size of the stew pan and cover the vegetables tightly.
Simmer for 2 hours with the lid closed.
Serve the meat and vegetables in a hot dish, pour the gravy over, and place the crust cut into four pieces on top.

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.

Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).