Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Potage Brunoïse À LA Purée De Lentilles
Ingredients
Directions
Rinse the lentils and soak them in water for a few hours.
In a pot, combine lentils, diced carrots, celery, and onion.
Add enough water to cover the ingredients and season with salt and pepper.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until lentils are tender.
Blend the mixture until smooth and serve hot.
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 + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together505 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lentils + celerytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together316 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, carrot, celery, pepper):
- Parsnipfits better
- Turnipfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, carrot, celery, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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