Name: Stuffing for Veal, Roast Turkey, Fowl, &C
Ingredients: ¼ pound beef suet (or beef marrow); ¼ pound bread crumbs; 2 teaspoons parsley leaves; 1½ teaspoons sweet marjoram (or lemon thyme); 1½ teaspoons grated lemon peel; 1 onion or shallot, finely chopped

Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffing for Veal, Roast Turkey, Fowl, &C

Ingredients

¼ pound beef suet (or beef marrow)
¼ pound bread crumbs
2 teaspoons parsley leaves
1½ teaspoons sweet marjoram (or lemon thyme)
1½ teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 onion or shallot, finely chopped

Directions

Mince the beef suet.
Combine the minced suet with bread crumbs in a bowl.
Add parsley, marjoram, lemon peel, and chopped onion or shallot.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

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.

Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,979 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together957 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, bread, parsley, marjoram, lemon):

Carrotfits better
Shallotfits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, marjoram, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.