Name: Broths, Soups, Gravies, and Sauces
Ingredients: 3 ounces fat bacon, minced; 4 ounces oatmeal; barley broth; 1 teaspoon finely pounded celery seed or cress seed; ¼ teaspoon finely pounded cayenne or 1½ teaspoons ground black pepper or allspice; salt to taste; optional: onions, garlic, or eschalot

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broths, Soups, Gravies, and Sauces

Ingredients

3 ounces fat bacon, minced
4 ounces oatmeal
barley broth
1 teaspoon finely pounded celery seed or cress seed
¼ teaspoon finely pounded cayenne or 1½ teaspoons ground black pepper or allspice
salt to taste
optional: onions, garlic, or eschalot

Directions

Melt the minced bacon in a pot.
Stir in the oatmeal and rub together to form a paste.
Gradually add the barley broth, stirring well until it boils.
Mix the celery seed and cayenne (or pepper) with a little soup, then pour the mixture back into the pot.
Simmer gently for 15 minutes, then season with salt.
Consider using more onions or adding garlic or eschalot for added flavor.

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together571 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Barley + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,166 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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

Oatmeal: Thickens the broth as it cooks, giving the soup body and a creamy texture.
Fat bacon: Adds fat and savory flavor that carries the spices through the soup.
Barley broth: Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Rubbing the oatmeal into the melted bacon fat. Cooking the oatmeal briefly in fat coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly instead of clumping when liquid is added.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, celery, pepper):

Carrotfits better
Leekfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, celery, pepper. 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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Broths, Soups, Gravies, and Sauces