Name: Celery Soup with Oysters
Ingredients: 3 heads of celery, cut into small pieces; 1 piece of onion, about the size of a hickory nut; 1 sprig of parsley; 1 pint boiling water; 1 quart milk; 1 heaping tablespoon flour; ½ cup warm milk; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Soup with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Combine celery, onion, parsley, and boiling water in a saucepan; boil for 30 minutes.
In a double boiler, heat the milk.
Mix flour with warm milk to form a smooth paste; gradually add to the hot milk, stirring until creamy.
Strain the boiled celery mixture through a colander into the milk.
Stir in salt and pepper; bring to a boil.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 (celery, parsley, milk, flour, pepper):

Carrotfits better
Parsnipfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, parsley, milk, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.