Name: Gumbo
Ingredients: 1 beef (leftover from previous cooking); 1 chicken (with bones); 2 corncobs; Salt to taste; Cayenne pepper to taste; 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce; 1 teaspoon sugar; Dry boiled rice (for serving)

Why it works: Beef and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

In a pot, combine the beef, chicken bones, and corncobs. Boil gently for one hour.
Remove the corncobs and any leftover beef and chicken bones, leaving the chicken meat in the stew.
Season the stew with salt, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and sugar.

Serve

Serve the gumbo with dry boiled rice.

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.

Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,148 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,265 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).