Name: Pork Forcemeat
Ingredients: 4 medium onions; 4 medium apples; 6 sage leaves; 1 sprig lemon thyme; 1 sprig parsley; black pepper; coarse sea salt; mashed potatoes

Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Peel and chop the apples, or bake them and use the pulp.
Boil the onions with the herbs until done, then strain and chop or sieve them.
Add the apples, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and enough mashed potatoes to make a smooth mixture.
Use the forcemeat after it has cooled.

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.

Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,485 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,973 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,445 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, sage, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, potato):

Limefits better
Orangefits better
Avocadofits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sage, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.