Name: A Cold Relish
Ingredients: odd scraps of meat; 3 tablespoons farina; parsley (fresh or dried); a little sage; a little celery; a little parsnip; a little carrot; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the odd scraps of meat into small pieces.
Add farina, parsley, sage, celery, parsnip, carrot, pepper, and salt.

Cook and set

Cover with water and stew gently for 2 hours.
Pour into a dish and let it cool until solid.

Serve

Cut into thin slices for serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together10,172 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,053 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,096 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Parsley + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Odd scraps of meat: Provide the main body and flavor of the relish as they simmer.
Farina: Thickens the cooking liquid so the relish sets firm when cold.

Flavor stand-ins for the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, parsley, celery, parsnip, carrot, pepper):

Thymebetter flavor fit
Marjorambetter flavor fit
Dillbetter flavor fit
Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, parsley, celery, parsnip, carrot, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.