Name: Sage Stuffing for Geese or Tame Ducks
Ingredients: 4 cups stale bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons melted butter; 2 teaspoons powdered sage; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 1 teaspoon powdered sweet marjoram

Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Sage Stuffing for Geese or Tame Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Mix stale bread crumbs, melted butter, powdered sage, chopped parsley, salt, black pepper, and powdered sweet marjoram in a large bowl.
Moisten the mixture with the melted butter until well combined.
The stuffing is now ready to use.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together507 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,979 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,445 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs: Provide the bulk and structure of the stuffing that holds its shape.
Melted butter: Adds fat and moisture so the crumbs stay tender and flavourful.
Powdered sage: Contributes the dominant savoury, aromatic flavour of the stuffing.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, sage, pepper, marjoram):

Thymefits better
Parsleythe original
Winter savoryfits about as well
Rosemaryfits less well

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

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.