Name: Cheap Broth
Ingredients: 1 sheep's head, without tongue or brains; 1 pound scrag of mutton or lean pieces; 6 onions; 12 peppercorns; ½ pint Embden or chicken groats; 2 ounces pearl barley; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; 1 gallon cold water

Why it works: Onion and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Cheap Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Thoroughly wash the sheep's head and boil it for 10 minutes in plenty of water with 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.
Pour away the water to ensure cleanliness.
In a pot, combine the head, meat cut into small pieces, onions, peppercorns, groats, barley, salt, and cold water.
When the pot boils, skim it, cover closely, and simmer gently for 6 hours.
Add water as needed to maintain the original quantity.
Strain the broth and rub the onions, barley, and groats through a sieve.
Remove the fat from the broth, add the thickening, boil together, and serve.

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.

Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + barleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,166 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Chicken + barleytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together265 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Mutton + chickentop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together471 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Mutton + barleytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together510 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).