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Czech Christmas Shells

We always start our Czech Christmas meal on the 24th December with this delicious warm pate. They are called SHELLS or in Czech MUSLE because they are served in scallop shells together with warm bread rolls. The mix can be prepared well in advance and frozen.

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,375 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 10

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • SHELL FILLING

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Liver + porktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Liver + anchovytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together197 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pork + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,848 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, pork, anchovy, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Appleabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, pork, anchovy, butter, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).