Name: For Gravy Soup
Ingredients: 1 small carrot; 1 small turnip; 1 small onion; 1 small stalk of celery; 1 clove; 1 small piece of mace; pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon Fluid Meat; coarse sea salt to taste

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 ↓

For Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the carrot, turnip, onion, and celery.
Combine the chopped vegetables with the clove, mace, and pepper in a pot.

Make the soup

Boil gently until the flavors meld, then strain the mixture.
For each half-pint of the strained liquid, stir in 1 tablespoon of fluid meat.
Add coarse sea salt to taste and serve.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrot: Adds sweetness and body to the broth as it simmers.
Turnip: Contributes mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth.
Onion: Builds savory depth as its sugars soften and release flavor during simmering.
Fluid meat: Adds concentrated meaty flavor and savoriness to the strained liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, celery, clove, pepper, meat):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Marjoramfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, celery, clove, pepper, meat. 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.