Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Sorrel Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the bone from the veal and tie it tightly.
In a stew pan, combine the bones and trimmings with stock, mace, onions, celery, carrot, and sweet herbs.
Add the veal to the stew pan.
Peel the lemon, slice it, and place it over the veal.
Cover the veal with bacon and then with paper.
Simmer on low heat for 2 hours.
Remove the veal and glaze it.
Serve the veal with sorrel sauce on the dish.
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.
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Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,351 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, celery, carrot, lemon):
- Parsleyfits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, celery, carrot, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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