Name: Spring Minestrone for Two with a Spanish Twist
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1/2 small onion, finely chopped; 1 leek, white part sliced; 1 carrot, finely choped; 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 small potatoes, peeled and diced; 1 chorizo sausages, cut into bite-sized pieces; 150 g shelled broad beans; 1 cup chicken stock; To garnish; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. 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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,310 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Leek + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together51 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 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

What each ingredient does

Broad beans: Add body and substance, and become soft and creamy when simmered and puréed.
Potatoes: Starch that thickens the soup as it cooks and breaks down into the purée.
Chorizo: Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the soup base.
Leek: Sweet, mild aromatic base that softens and builds flavour with the onion.
Chicken stock: Provides the liquid that carries the soup and gives it savoury depth.

The step that matters

Puréeing half the soup. Blending only half leaves some texture while thickening the broth. Starch from the potatoes and beans releases into the liquid, so over-blending can make the soup gluey, while too little leaves it thin.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, onion, leek, carrot, garlic, potato, beans):

Thymefits better
Cuminfits better
Parsleyfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, onion, leek, carrot, garlic, potato, beans. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sausage	100g cooked	301
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Parmesan Cheese	1 oz (28g)	110
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Broad Bean	not in our table	0

Spring Minestrone for Two with a Spanish Twist