Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Mirepoix for Braizing Larded Fillets of Roebuck, Etc
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the veal, bacon, ham, carrots, onions, mushrooms, shallots, garlic, and spices into small square pieces.
Make the mirepoix
In a stewpan, melt the butter and fry the chopped ingredients until browned.
Add the Madeira or sherry and broth to the stewpan.
Simmer the mixture on low heat for about 1.5 hours.
Strain the mirepoix through a fine sieve into a basin, pressing to extract all the liquid.
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 + garlictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
-
Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,982 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,000 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,677 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal
- Provides body and savoury meat flavour as it cooks down into the base.
- Butter
- Carries the frying step and helps the vegetables and meats brown for deeper flavour.
- Onions
- Caramelise when browned, adding sweetness and depth to the base.
- Carrots
- Add natural sweetness and aromatic body to the simmered base.
- Madeira or sherry
- Adds acidity and fortified wine aroma that deepens the flavour of the reduction.
- Broth
- Supplies liquid for the long simmer, carrying flavour from the solids into the final mirepoix.
The step that matters
Frying the chopped ingredients until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation builds the deep flavour of the base. Pale or burnt pieces leave the mirepoix either flat or bitter, so colour should be even and stopped before scorching.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom, shallot, garlic):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Capersfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom, shallot, garlic. 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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