Why it works: Meat and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,364 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Broth of Meats
Ingredients
Directions
Place the meat in a saucepan and cover with water.
Add sweet herbs, peppercorns, and onion if desired.
Simmer over low heat.
Remove the fat when it rises to the surface.
If any fat remains, cover it with a piece of white paper to absorb it.
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.
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Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Meat
- Releases its flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savoriness.
- Onion
- Adds mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
- Peppercorns
- Contribute a mild, warm aroma that seasons the broth.
The step that matters
Simmer over low heat. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil extracts flavor without emulsifying fat into the liquid, so the broth stays clearer and easier to skim.
“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.
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