Name: Stuffing, Alexandre Dumas'
Ingredients: equal portions of veal, chicken, and partridge flesh; 4 ounces sausage meat; 15 to 20 fine Lyons chestnuts; salt; water; 1 stick of celery; 1 clove of garlic; a handful of fresh parsley leaves

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffing, Alexandre Dumas'

Ingredients

Directions

Mince together veal, chicken, and partridge flesh in small, equal portions.
Add 4 ounces of sausage meat to the minced mixture.
Boil 15 to 20 chestnuts in salted water until tender, adding a stick of celery while boiling.
Once cooked, crush the chestnuts and mix them with the meat mixture.
Stuff the hare with the mixture, adding a clove of garlic and parsley leaves inside.
Sew up the hare securely.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Chestnut + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,668 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,768 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 (veal, chicken, meat, chestnut, celery, garlic, parsley):

Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, chicken, meat, chestnut, celery, garlic, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.