Name: Dinner for 8 Persons. February.
Ingredients: Hare; coarse sea salt; water; vegetables (carrots, onions, celery); herbs (thyme, bay leaf); butter; flour; cream

Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Dinner for 8 Persons. February.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare by cleaning and cutting it into pieces.
In a large pot, cover the hare with water and add salt, vegetables, and herbs.
Simmer until the meat is tender, then remove the hare and strain the broth.
In a separate pan, melt butter and stir in flour to make a roux.
Gradually add the strained broth to the roux, stirring until thickened.
Add cream to the soup and adjust seasoning 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,563 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,193 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, thyme, butter, flour, cream):

Parsnipfits better
Leekfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, thyme, butter, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.