Name: A-LA-mode Beef
Ingredients: 1 cow heel; 1 ox cheek; 3 oz clarified dripping; 3 carrots; 6 onions; 1 bunch of herbs (marjoram, thyme, parsley); 2 tablespoons flour; pepper; coarse sea salt

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 ↓

A-LA-mode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the cow heel thoroughly in water.
Cut off all the flesh from the cow heel and cut it into neat pieces.
Wash the ox cheek well in cold water.
Rub the ox cheek with coarse sea salt.
Dry the ox cheek with a clean cloth.
Melt 3 oz of clarified dripping in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Cut the ox cheek into neat pieces.
Flour each piece of ox cheek.
Fry the floured pieces of ox cheek in the melted dripping until browned, stirring occasionally.
Wash, scrape, and slice the carrots.
Peel and slice the onions.
Wash and dry the parsley.
Tie together the marjoram, thyme, bay leaf, and parsley with string.
Add the sliced carrots, onions, and herb bundle to the saucepan.

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).
Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,979 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together687 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 (carrot, marjoram, thyme, parsley, flour, pepper):

Parsnipfits better
Turnipfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

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