Name: Raw Marinade
Ingredients: 1 cup wine (red or white, strong Spanish or Italian, or Madeira); 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1 onion, chopped; 1 teaspoon tarragon; 1 teaspoon black peppercorns; 1 bay leaf; 1 teaspoon thyme; 1 teaspoon basil

Why it works: Thyme and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,768 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Raw Marinade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marinade

In a bowl, combine the wine, garlic, onion, tarragon, peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme, and basil.

Marinate and cook

Soak the meat in the marinade for 24 hours.
Use the marinade in the cooking process.

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.

Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,768 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Tarragon + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together528 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Tarragon + basiltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together326 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Wine: Acidity and aromatic liquid that tenderises the meat and carries the herb flavours.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens during marinating and cooking.
Onion: Adds sweetness and savoury aroma that infuses into the marinade.
Black peppercorns: Contribute sharp, woody aroma that spreads through the marinade.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, clove, garlic, tarragon, thyme, basil):

Shallotfits better
Tomatofits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, clove, garlic, tarragon, thyme, basil. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.