Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Onion Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Put the chopped carrots and turnips into the water that has boiled a leg of mutton.
Let it stew for two hours.
Strain the mixture and add the sliced and fried onions.
Simmer for three hours longer, skimming carefully.
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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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + muttontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,878 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,531 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
- Carrots
- Add sweetness and a rounded, vegetable aroma to the broth as they soften.
- Turnips
- Contribute mild sweetness and earthy aroma that deepen the broth's flavor.
- Leg of mutton
- Releases meat flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth richness and body.
- Onions
- Frying browns their sugars for savory depth, and simmering adds sweetness and aroma.
The step that matters
Skimming during the long simmer. Skimming removes the foam and fat that rise as the meat cooks. Leaving them in makes the broth cloudy and greasy, and the flavor less clean.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, mutton):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, mutton. 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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