Name: Convalescent Beef Tea
Ingredients: 1 lb lean beef; 1 carrot; 1 turnip; 1 thin slice of scalded onion; 1 blade of mace; 1 sprig of herbs; 1 sprig of marjoram; 1 sprig of parsley; salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Marjoram and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Convalescent Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash the beef very well.
Place the beef, carrot, turnip, onion, mace, herbs, marjoram, and parsley into a jar.

Cook and serve

Cook the mixture as you would ordinary beef tea.
Once ready, strain the tea and 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.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together687 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef: Provides the main meaty flavour and dissolves into the liquid as it cooks.
Carrot: Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the tea.
Turnip: Adds mild sweetness and body to the broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, marjoram, parsley, pepper):

Thymefits better
Winter savoryfits better
Celeryfits better
Macethe original

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

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.