Name: The Drinks, Food, Baths, Exercise and Clothing in Diabetes Mellitus
Ingredients: ½ pint beef tea (made from pure lean meat, free from tendons, cartilage, and fat); butter (to taste); pepper (to taste); coarse sea salt (to taste); Worcestershire sauce (optional); Halford sauce (optional); Chutney sauce (optional); celery (optional)

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The Drinks, Food, Baths, Exercise and Clothing in Diabetes Mellitus

Ingredients

½ pint beef tea (made from pure lean meat, free from tendons, cartilage, and fat)
butter (to taste)
pepper (to taste)
coarse sea salt (to taste)
Worcestershire sauce (optional)
Halford sauce (optional)
Chutney sauce (optional)
celery (optional)

Directions

Drink ½ pint of beef tea at each meal and between meals as specified.
Prepare the muscle pulp of lean beef according to previous instructions.
Serve the cooked beef on a hot plate and season with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Add Worcestershire, Halford, or Chutney sauce if desired.
Include a little celery at each meal.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).
Tea + celerytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together82 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 celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tea, meat, butter, pepper, sauce):

Thymefits about as well
Parsleyfits about as well
Celerythe original
Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tea, meat, butter, pepper, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.