Name: Baked Beef
Ingredients: Beef (legs or shins); Butter; Milk; Onions; Turnips; Coarse sea salt

Why it works: Onion and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Baked Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cut the beef into pieces and season with salt.
Place the beef in a dish with butter and a little milk.
Baste the beef several times.
Cover the dish and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about three hours.
For ox cheeks or similar cuts, bake for about four hours.
Let the dish cool to skim off the fat, then reheat as needed.

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.

Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Beef + turniptop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,940 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).