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Dinner for Eight

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Broccoli and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 910 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dinner for Eight

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the Spring Soup according to your favorite recipe.

  2. Broil the salmon until cooked through.

  3. Boil the leg of mutton until tender.

  4. Stew the pigeons until fully cooked.

  5. Steam or boil the broccoli until bright green.

  6. Prepare jelly as per package instructions.

  7. Roast the chicken until golden and cooked through.

  8. Broil the ham until heated and slightly crispy.

  9. Boil or bake the potatoes until tender.

  10. Make rice pudding by cooking rice with milk and sugar until creamy.

  11. Toss together a fresh salad with your choice of greens and dressing.

  12. Pan-fry the veal cutlets until browned and cooked through.

  13. Mash the turnips with butter and seasoning to taste.

  14. Prepare custards according to your preferred recipe.

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.

  1. Broccoli + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together910 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  5. Broccoli + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together684 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Swap the broccoli

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, mutton, chicken, ham, potato, rice, veal):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Broccolithe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mutton, chicken, ham, potato, rice, veal. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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