Name: Wild Mushroom Soup with Blue Cheese Toasts
Ingredients: 2 1/2 Tbs. unsalted butter; 1 yellow onion, chopped; 1 lb. fresh button mushrooms, brushed clean; and coarsely chopped; 1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms; 6 cups chicken stock; 4 cups water; 1/2 lb. fresh wild mushrooms, brushed clean; and thinly sliced; Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste; 1/2 cup heavy cream; 1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice; 2 oz. blue cheese, such as Roquefort, Stilton or; Gorgonzola, at room temperature; 1 1/2 tsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature; Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste; 6 baguette slices, lightly toasted; 2 Tbs. finely snipped fresh chives

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. 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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mushroom + chickentop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,172 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, mushroom, chicken, pepper, cream, blue cheese):

Avocadofits better
Grapefits better
Plumfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, mushroom, chicken, pepper, cream, blue cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Blue Cheese	1 oz (28g)	100
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Mushroom	1/2 cup sliced (35g)	15
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Chives	1 tbsp (3g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Porcini	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0

Wild Mushroom Soup with Blue Cheese Toasts