Name: Beef A-LA-vingrette
Ingredients: 1 slice of underdone boiled beef (3 inches thick); ½ cup water; ⅓ cup white wine; 1 bunch sweet herbs; 1 onion; 1 bay leaf; 3 cloves (pounded); pepper to taste; vinegar for sauce

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beef A-LA-vingrette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

Cut the beef slice and a little fat.
Stew the beef in water, white wine, sweet herbs, onion, and bay leaf.

Season and serve

Season with pounded cloves and pepper until the liquid is nearly evaporated, turning once.
Let it cool and serve.
Strain the gravy and mix it with a little vinegar for sauce.

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.

Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,776 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef: Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender as it stews.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity to the strained gravy sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, white wine, onion, pepper, vinegar, sauce):

Garlicfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, white wine, onion, pepper, vinegar, sauce. 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.