Name: English Beef Broth
Ingredients: 1 good heavy brown stock; 4 small onions, sliced; 1 head of celery, chopped; 1 turnip, chopped; 1 bunch of parsley; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; Salt and pepper to taste

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 ↓

English Beef Broth

Ingredients

Directions

In a large pot, combine the brown stock, onions, celery, turnip, and parsley.
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer.
Thicken the broth as desired.
Stir in Worcestershire sauce and season with salt and pepper.
Serve 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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,842 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, turnip, parsley, sauce, pepper):

Carrotfits better
Parsnipfits better
Lettucefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, turnip, parsley, sauce, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.