Name: Pot Roast in a Stovetop Pressure Cooker
Ingredients: 1 beef rump roast, about 3 lb.; Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste; 1/4 cup all-purpose flour; 1 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil; 2 yellow onions, cut into slices 1/4 inch thick; 8 carrots, cut diagonally into slices 1/2 inch thick; 1 1/2 cups unsalted beef stock; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 3 fresh thyme sprigs; 1 bay leaf

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, flour, olive, onion, carrot, garlic):

Cuminfits better
Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, olive, onion, carrot, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Beef	100g cooked	250
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Bay Leaf	1 leaf (0.6g)	2
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Pot Roast in a Stovetop Pressure Cooker