Name: Beef, Mutton, or Lamb Pie
Ingredients: 3 pounds beef (with fat and lean) or chops from a loin or neck of mutton; Salt; Pepper; Mace; Allspice; 1 small onion or shallot, chopped; Pickled mushrooms (optional); 2 ounces butter

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beef, Mutton, or Lamb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the meat and season it with salt, pepper, mace, and allspice, rubbing them in well.
Add the chopped onion or shallot and pickled mushrooms if desired.
Place the meat in a stewpot with the butter and cover it tightly.
Set it by a slow fire and let it simmer in its own steam until it begins to shrink.
Once cooled, add more seasoning, forcemeat, and boiled eggs.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 (beef, pepper, allspice, onion, mushroom, butter):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Marjoramfits better
Macethe original

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