Name: Vegetable and Meat
Ingredients: cracked joints of uncooked beef, veal, or mutton; cracked bones of cooked game or underdone beef or mutton; cold water; vegetables (carrots, turnips, onions, celery, cabbage, green peas, asparagus, French beans, rice, Scotch barley, vermicelli, macaroni); salt; cayenne pepper

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable and Meat

Ingredients

cracked joints of uncooked beef, veal, or mutton
cracked bones of cooked game or underdone beef or mutton
cold water
vegetables (carrots, turnips, onions, celery, cabbage, green peas, asparagus, French beans, rice, Scotch barley, vermicelli, macaroni)
salt
cayenne pepper

Directions

Prepare the stock

Cut the meat into small pieces and break the bones lengthwise.
Place the meat and bones in a pot with cold water, without salt.
Heat slowly until it comes to a boil, then skim the surface.
Cover the pot and let it simmer until the meat is thoroughly cooked and the juices are extracted.

Finish and serve

The next day, remove the fat that hardens on top of the soup.
Reheat the soup and add boiled vegetables of your choice.
Season with salt and a little cayenne pepper.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cracked beef, veal, or mutton joints: Release juices and gelatin into the broth, giving it body and meaty flavour during simmering.
Cracked bones: Add gelatin and depth of flavour to the broth as they simmer slowly.
Vegetables: Add sweetness, texture and bulk once the broth is reheated and the stock is clear.

The step that matters

Heat slowly and skim the surface. Bringing the pot to a boil gently and skimming foam keeps the broth clear and free of off-flavours, since rapid boiling emulsifies fat and impurities into the liquid.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, cabbage, asparagus):

Beansfits better
Lentilsfits better
Chestnutfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, cabbage, asparagus. 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.

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Vegetable and Meat