Name: Stew From Cold Roast
Ingredients: remnants of roast beef or mutton; coarse sea salt; water; onions, peeled and quartered; raw potatoes, peeled and quartered; soup stock (optional); flour; slices of crisp toast (for serving)

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stew From Cold Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Remove fat, gristle, and bones from the meat and cut it into small pieces.
Slightly salt the meat and place it in a kettle with enough water to nearly cover it.
Simmer the meat until it is almost ready to break into pieces.
Add the onions and raw potatoes to the kettle.
If available, add a little soup stock.
Cook until the potatoes are done.
Thicken the liquid or gravy with flour.
Serve the stew attractively on slices of crisp toast.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32,460 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).