Name: Seasoning for Roast Pork, Ducks, or Geese
Ingredients: ⅔ onion, chopped fine; ⅓ cup green sage, chopped fine; coarse sea salt, to taste; black pepper, to taste; ½ cup bread crumbs (optional); 1 tablespoon butter (size of a walnut); 1-2 cloves garlic (optional); kitchen twine or skewers

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Seasoning for Roast Pork, Ducks, or Geese

Ingredients

⅔ onion, chopped fine
⅓ cup green sage, chopped fine
coarse sea salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
½ cup bread crumbs (optional)
1 tablespoon butter (size of a walnut)
1-2 cloves garlic (optional)
kitchen twine or skewers

Directions

Mix the chopped onion, sage, salt, pepper, bread crumbs (if using), and butter in a bowl.
For pork, place the seasoning in the flappy part and secure it with a skewer or thread.
For ducks or geese, tie the skin around the throat, fill the vent with seasoning, and secure it by turning the ramp through the skin.

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together179 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together731 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, sage, pepper, bread, butter, walnut, garlic):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sage, pepper, bread, butter, walnut, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.