Name: Boiled and Stewed Beef
Ingredients: 1 brisket of beef; home-brewed ale; carrots; turnips; baked Spanish onions; summer cabbages or Brussels sprouts; small suet dumplings; gravy

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled and Stewed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Salt the brisket of beef.
Let it sit for two to three weeks to absorb the flavor of the herbs and spices.

Cook and serve

Place the brisket in a pot with home-brewed ale and bring to a boil.
Serve the beef surrounded by carrots, turnips, baked Spanish onions, summer cabbages or Brussels sprouts, and small suet dumplings.
Pour some gravy under the beef before 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

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 + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket of beef: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender with long moist cooking.
Home-brewed ale: Liquid that moistens the meat and adds malty flavor to the cooking pot.
Carrots: Add sweetness and body as a braised accompaniment to the beef.
Turnips: Contribute mild sweetness and soft texture as a braised accompaniment.
Baked spanish onions: Add sweetness and savory depth as the onions soften and caramelize.