Name: To Lard Meat, Fowls, Sweetbreads, Etc.
Ingredients: slices of bacon; meat or fowl; onions; sweet herbs; celery

Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

To Lard Meat, Fowls, Sweetbreads, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Cut slices of bacon into small strips.
Insert the strips into a larding needle.
Pierce the skin and a little of the meat with the needle, leaving equal lengths of bacon outside.
Lard in rows at your desired distance.
Place the larded meat in a stewpan and cover it with thick slices of bacon.
Surround with six to eight onions, a bundle of sweet herbs, and some celery.

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.

Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,880 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).