Name: Beef Cake
Ingredients: beef and veal bones; vegetables (carrot, turnip, cabbage); butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; nutmeg; parsley or chives

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 ↓

Beef Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make stock from beef and veal bones, skimming but not clarifying.
Wash and peel the vegetables. Cut carrot and turnip into round slices and chop cabbage into small pieces.
In a stewpan, combine vegetables and butter, cover, and cook slowly for about 10 minutes.
Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little grated nutmeg.
Strain the stock over the vegetables and let simmer for about 30 minutes, skimming occasionally.
Cut the roll into thin round slices and place on a baking sheet.
Bake the slices in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until golden brown on both sides.
Place the baked slices in a soup tureen, moisten with a little stock, pour the soup over, and sprinkle with chopped parsley or chives 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).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,424 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, carrot, turnip, cabbage, butter, pepper):

Parsleyfits better
Celeryfits better
Marjoramfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, turnip, cabbage, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.