Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Mirepoix Por Braizing Larded Fillets of Roebuck, Etc.
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the veal, bacon, ham, carrots, onions, mushrooms, shallots, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, cloves, mace, and peppercorns into small square pieces.
Make the mirepoix
In a stewpan, melt the butter and fry the chopped ingredients until browned.
Add the Madeira or sherry and broth to the stewpan.
Simmer the mixture on low heat for about 1.5 hours.
Strain the mirepoix through a fine sieve, applying pressure to extract all the flavors.
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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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
-
Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,982 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,000 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,677 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal
- Provides body and savoury meat flavour that builds the base of the mirepoix.
- Bacon
- Its rendered fat and smoky savour carry flavour through the frying and simmering.
- Butter
- Fat that carries the browning of the chopped ingredients and adds richness.
- Madeira or sherry
- Adds acidity and aromatic depth as it reduces into the liquid.
- Broth
- Supplies the liquid that extracts and carries flavour during the long simmer.
- Onions
- Browning and sweetness develop as they caramelise in the fat.
The step that matters
Frying the chopped ingredients until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savoury flavour. Pale frying yields a flat stock, while over-darkening can turn the mixture bitter.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom, shallot, garlic):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Capersfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom, shallot, garlic. 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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