Name: Duck Stewed with Cabbage
Ingredients: 1 cabbage; 1 duck; coarse sea salt; pepper; sweet marjoram; thyme; onions; butter

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Duck Stewed with Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the cabbage and let it drain overnight.
Half roast the duck and place it in a pot with seasoned gravy.
Stew the duck until cooked through.
Strain and thicken the gravy.
Cut and fry the cabbage in butter, then heat it with the duck and gravy.

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.

Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Thyme + oniontop 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 cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, marjoram, thyme, onion, butter):

Carrotfits better
Leekfits better
Potatofits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, marjoram, thyme, onion, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.