Name: Modern Cookery
Ingredients: 3 lbs bacon; 2 fowls (chickens); 3 pints broth from bacon and fowls; 3 onions; 1 oz cloves; 1 oz peppercorns; 1 teaspoon allspice

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the bacon for 1 to 2 hours.
Prepare the fowls by adding them to the pot.
Combine the broth from the bacon and fowls in a large pot.
Add the onions, cloves, peppercorns, and allspice.
Simmer for 1 hour.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,901 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Chicken + clovetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,682 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bacon: Adds smoky, salty flavour and fat to the broth as it cooks.
Fowls (chickens): Release flesh flavour and gelatin into the broth, giving body to the stew.
Onions: Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the broth.
Cloves: Contribute warm, pungent aroma to the broth.