Name: Ducks Stewed with Red Cabbage
Ingredients: 2 ducks; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Butter; Red cabbage; Good consommé; Vinegar

Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ducks Stewed with Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Singed and truss the ducks, seasoning the inside with salt and pepper.
Stew the ducks gently for 1.5 to 2 hours in beef braise.
Shred the red cabbage finely, wash, and drain it.
In a separate pan, melt butter and add the cabbage with salt and pepper.
Cover and stew the cabbage, shaking every 3-4 minutes. Add consommé if it gets dry.
Once the cabbage is tender, mix in vinegar.
Serve the cabbage on a dish and place the ducks on top. Cover 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.

Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).