Name: Beef Hashed
Ingredients: bones from a beef joint; very little water; a bunch of sweet herbs; a few onions; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 small onions, thinly sliced; 1 carrot, diced; a little parsley, finely chopped

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Break the bones of the beef joint into small pieces.
Stew the bones in a small amount of water with sweet herbs and a few onions.
In a separate pan, melt the butter and mix in the flour until browned.
Pour the gravy from the bones into the butter mixture.
Add the hashed meat, sliced onions, diced carrot, and chopped parsley.
Stew gently until the meat is heated through, then serve.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,606 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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, carrot, parsley):

Parsnipfits better
Leekfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, carrot, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.