Name: Broths, Gravies, and Soups
Ingredients: trimmings and parings of meat, game, or poultry; water from boiled meat; 1 onion; a few sprigs of parsley; a few sprigs of sweet herbs; a few corns of allspice or other spice; ground black pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broths, Gravies, and Soups

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash the trimmings and parings of meat, game, or poultry.
Place them in a stew pan and cover with the water from boiled meat.
Add the onion, parsley, sweet herbs, and spices.

Simmer and season

Simmer in a cool oven or cheese toaster until reduced to desired consistency.
Season with ground black pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + corntop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together943 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Trimmings and parings of meat, game, or poultry: Provide the main meat flavour and body for the broth as they simmer.
Onion: Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it cooks into the liquid.