Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
In a large pot, combine bacon, calf's foot, onion, carrot, fine herbs, bay leaf, garlic, cloves, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Pour ½ cup of water over the ingredients.
Cover and simmer on low heat for at least 6 hours until the meat is tender.
Strain the gravy through a sieve, skim off the fat, and serve.
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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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,030 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Carrot + peppertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together13,144 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Carrot + clovetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,916 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together21,599 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, garlic, pepper):
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Cuminbetter flavor fit
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, garlic, pepper. 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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IllustrationThe Sunday pairing: one pairing, the chemistry behind it, and how to cook it. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
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