Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Butter the bottom of a small stockpot.
Add the slices of raw ham, gravy beef, knuckle of veal, and hen or partridges.
Include the celery, leeks, carrots, and a faggot of thyme, winter savory, and parsley.
Add cloves, mace, and peppercorns.
Moisten with a large ladleful of broth.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together10,172 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,563 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,188 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Leek + thymetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together360 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,310 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the thyme
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, beef, veal, celery, leek, carrot):
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Thymethe original
- Marjoramabout as good a flavor fit
- Pepperabout as good a flavor fit
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, beef, veal, celery, leek, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
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