Name: Spiced Beef
Ingredients: 2 dozen allspice; rind of 3 lemons; ¼ ounce mace; 12 cloves; 2 nutmegs; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 3 ounces white pepper

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Powder the allspice, lemon rind, mace, cloves, and nutmegs separately.
Combine the powdered ingredients with cayenne and white pepper.
Store the spice mix in a dry, sound bottle and cork it tightly.
Keep in a dry place until needed.

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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, lemon, mace, clove, nutmeg, pepper):

Cinnamonfits better
Marjoramfits better
Cardamomfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, lemon, mace, clove, nutmeg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.