Name: Spanish Sauce with Essence of Lark
Ingredients: larks; Spanish sauce; small minions of chicken; truffles; fried bread; meat jelly; chopped aspic jelly

Why it works: Chicken and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,449 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Spanish Sauce with Essence of Lark

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Unmould the larks, wipe them, and dip in the Spanish sauce.
Leave the larks on a dish until cold.
Trim the same quantity of small chicken minions as there are larks.
Stuff the chicken with truffles and bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C).
Prepare a socle of fried bread cut into three tiers.
Place the socle on a hot dish.
Put the larks in more sauce and arrange them in rows, one above the other.
Place a stuffed chicken fillet between each lark.
Surround the dish with a border of croutons made from meat jelly.
Garnish with chopped aspic jelly and serve.

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.

Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together527 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together756 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).