Name: Game Puddings
Ingredients: flour; milk; eggs; pepper; salt; seasoned poultry or game; shredded onion; chopped oysters; butter

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Game Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make a batter with flour, milk, eggs, pepper, and salt.
Pour a little batter into the bottom of a pudding dish.
Add seasoned poultry or game and a little shredded onion.
Pour the remaining batter over the top.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.
For a dumpling, stuff a chicken, partridge, or pigeon with chopped oysters.
Lay the stuffed bird on its back in the paste and place a bit of butter rolled in flour on the breast.
Close the paste to form a dumpling, place it in hot water, and boil for 2 hours.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, pepper, oyster, butter):

Asparagusfits better
Potatofits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, pepper, oyster, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.