Name: Stock, and Clear Soups
Ingredients: 2½ pounds of meat; ¾ pound of well broken bones; 6 ounces of fowl giblets; 2 ounces of each vegetable; 1 ounce of celery; a pinch of sugar; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Meat and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,880 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stock, and Clear Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Ensure your stock pot is thoroughly clean by scalding it with hot water mixed with a lump of washing soda.
Use soft water for the best results.
Combine the meat, broken bones, and salt in cold water, placing the bones at the bottom and the meat on top.
If serving as bouilli, roll and tie the meat before adding it to the pot.

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.

Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,880 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Celery + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,794 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,866 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).