Name: Boiled Dinner
Ingredients: salt pork; beets; 1 head of cabbage, quartered; potatoes

Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Boiled Dinner

Ingredients

salt pork
beets
1 head of cabbage, quartered
potatoes

Directions

Place a piece of salt pork in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil.
At 10:00 AM, add a few beets.
At 11:00 AM, add a quartered head of cabbage.
After 30 minutes, add the potatoes.
Serve very hot.

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.

Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together275 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + cabbagetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together919 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork: Flavours the cooking water and adds fat and savoury depth to the broth.
Beets: Add earthy sweetness and colour to the pot.
Cabbage: Adds mild sweetness and a tender, vegetal body to the boil.
Potatoes: Absorb the seasoned broth and become soft and starchy as they cook.