Name: Savory Beef Tea
Ingredients: 3 pounds lean beef, finely chopped; 3 leeks; 1 onion, studded with 6 cloves; 1 small carrot; 1 teaspoon celery seed; small bunch of herbs (thyme, marjoram, parsley); 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ cup mushroom ketchup; 3 pints water

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 ↓

Savory Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the chopped beef, leeks, onion, carrot, celery seed, herbs, salt, mushroom ketchup, and water in a pot.
Prepare according to the directions provided.
For a richer version, mince ½ pound of raw lean beef.
In a glass or earthenware vessel, mix the minced beef with ¾ pint of water and 4 drops of muriatic acid.
Add ¼ teaspoon of salt, stir well, and let it stand for 1 hour.
Strain through a fine sieve and rinse the residue with ¼ pint of water.
The resulting liquid can be consumed cold or warmed to no more than 120°F (49°C).

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).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together687 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Leek + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together360 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,075 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 (beef, leek, clove, carrot, celery, thyme, marjoram):

Turnipfits better
Parsnipfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, leek, clove, carrot, celery, thyme, marjoram. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.