Name: Hearty Beef & Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: 2 Tbs. olive oil; 1 lb. boneless beef chuck, cut into chunks; 1 large yellow onion, chopped; 2 carrots, chopped; 2 celery stalks, chopped; 2 red-skinned potatoes, scrubbed but unpeeled, cut into chunks; 1 can (28 oz.) crushed plum tomatoes, with juices; 1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed; 2 Tbs. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley; Salt and freshly ground pepper, 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 ↓

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).
Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, beef, onion, carrot, celery, potato, tomato):

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Cherryfits better
Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, beef, onion, carrot, celery, potato, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Beef	100g cooked	250
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Plum	1 medium (66g)	30
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Celery Stalks	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Hearty Beef & Vegetable Soup