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
Directions
Prepare the stock
Fry bacon trimmings, onion, celery root, carrots, and ham in a pot.
Add a bouquet garni and moisten with white broth.
Squeeze in the juice of one lemon and add half a bottle of white wine.
Boil slowly over medium heat for at least two hours.
Use the stock
Use the broth to cook poultry or veal.
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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Celery + lemontop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together21,599 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lemon + white winetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together3,764 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Onion + celerytop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together18,506 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bacon trimmings
- Adds smoky, savoury fat and depth of flavour to the stock.
- Lean ham
- Contributes savoury, meaty flavour to the broth.
- White wine
- Adds acidity and aromatic complexity that lightly brightens the stock.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavours of the stock.
- White broth
- Forms the liquid base that carries and extracts flavour during the long simmer.
The step that matters
Boil slowly over medium heat for at least two hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavour gradually and keeps the broth clear. A hard boil emulsifies fat and clouds the liquid, and it can also reduce the stock too quickly.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, carrot, ham, white wine):
- Lemonthe original
- Appleabout as good a flavor fit
- Grapeabout as good a flavor fit
- Orangeabout as good a flavor fit
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, carrot, ham, white wine. 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).
“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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