Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Modern Cookery
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the bacon for 1 to 2 hours.
Boil the chicken in the bacon broth.
Add the onions, cloves, peppercorns, and allspice to the pot.
Simmer for half an hour.
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.
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,901 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,270 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Chicken + clovetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,682 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bacon
- Releases fat and smoky flavour into the broth as it cooks.
- Fowls
- Provide the meat and body of the soup while they simmer in the broth.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, clove, allspice):
- Mustardfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, clove, allspice. 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.
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