Name: Mixed Spices
Ingredients: 8 ounces ground thyme; 1 ounce dried bay leaves; ½ ounce ground marjoram; ½ ounce ground rosemary; 1½ ounces ground nutmeg; 1½ ounces ground cloves; 1 ounce white pepper; ½ ounce red pepper

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mixed Spices

Ingredients

Directions

Combine all the ground spices in a bowl and mix them well together.
Transfer the mixture into bottles and seal tightly with corks.
Use the spices as needed, or mix with salt.
For every 3 ounces of spice, use ¾ pound of salt.

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.

Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Thyme + rosemarytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,340 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Marjoram + rosemarytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together178 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together687 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

Ground thyme: Provides the dominant herbal, earthy aroma that defines the blend.
Ground nutmeg: Adds warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the savory herbs.
Ground cloves: Contributes a strong, pungent warmth that lends depth to the aroma.
White pepper: Adds sharp, direct heat without the dark specks of black pepper.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, marjoram, rosemary, nutmeg, clove, pepper):

Winter savoryfits better
Sagefits better
Allspicefits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, marjoram, rosemary, nutmeg, clove, pepper. 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.