Name: Pigeon Pie
Ingredients: Pigeon; Grape jelly; New potatoes; Tomato salad; Lemon pudding; Cake

Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeon by cleaning and seasoning it.
Place the pigeon in a pie crust.
Add grape jelly on top of the pigeon.
Bake until the crust is golden and the pigeon is cooked through.
Serve with new potatoes and tomato salad.
Finish the meal with lemon pudding and cake.

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.

Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Grape + tomatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,002 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,592 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Grape + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together415 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).