Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Boiled Dinner
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the corned beef and salt pork in a large pot for 1 hour.
Change the water and boil again.
Add the chicken; boil for 2 hours if it's old, or 1 hour if it's young.
Add the vegetables to the pot, cooking each type for the time it requires.
Once everything is cooked, place the beef, pork, and chicken on a platter and arrange the vegetables around them.
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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Beef + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Pork + chickentop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,417 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,148 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corned beef
- Provides the main savory flavor and tender meat after long simmering.
- Salt pork
- Adds fat and savory depth to the boiling liquid.
- Whole chicken
- Contributes meat and flavor to the pot, with cooking time depending on its age.
- Vegetables
- Absorb flavor from the broth and add texture and sweetness as they cook.
The step that matters
Changing the water before the second boil. Corned beef and salt pork are very salty, and the first boil draws out much of that salt and some fat. Replacing the water keeps the final broth from tasting overly salty or greasy.
Swap the cabbage
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, chicken, carrot, potato):
- Onionfits better
- Tomatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Cabbagethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, chicken, carrot, potato. 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.
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