Name: Chicken Garden Soup
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 6 carrots; 6 sticks celery; 2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped; 2 bay leaves; sea salt; freshly ground black pepper; 4 whole peppercorns; 1 higher-welfare roast chicken carcass, with leftover chicken attached; 1 large knob butter; olive oil; 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced; 4 shallots, peeled and finely sliced; a few sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked, stalks finely chopped; 2 handfuls seasonal greens, such as kale or cavalo nero, washed and shredded; 200 g spinach, roughly shredded; 1 lemon

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,173 recipes mention both. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,451 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, onion, pepper, chicken, butter, olive):

Parsleybetter flavor fit
Thymebetter flavor fit
Garlicbetter flavor fit
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, onion, pepper, chicken, butter, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

Chicken Garden Soup