Name: Chickpea, Tomato and Bread Soup
Ingredients: 1 large onion, sliced; 1 medium fennel bulb, sliced; about 120 ml olive oil; 1 large carrot, peeled, cut in half lengthways and sliced; 3 celery sticks, sliced; 1 tbsp tomato purée; 250 ml white wine; 400g tinned Italian plum tomatoes; 1 tbsp chopped oregano; 2 tbsp chopped parsley; 1 tbsp thyme leaves; 2 bay leaves; 2 tsp caster sugar; 1 litre vegetable stock; salt and black pepper; 160 g stale sourdough bread (crust removed); 400 g cooked chickpeas; 4 tbsp basil pesto (ideally homemade); 1 handful shredded basil leaves

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).
Fennel + carrottop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together330 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Fennel + celerytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale sourdough bread: Thickens the soup and soaks up broth, giving it a hearty, bread-based body.
Chickpeas: Add body and texture when partly crushed, while whole pieces keep some bite.
Tinned plum tomatoes: Provide acidity and liquid that form the base of the soup.
Olive oil: Carries flavour from the aromatics and adds richness to the soup and bread.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma as it bubbles and reduces into the base.
Onion: Softened in oil, it builds sweetness and savoury depth as the base flavour.

The step that matters

Drying the bread before adding it to the soup. Baking the bread until thoroughly dry lets it toast and hold its shape, so it thickens the soup without turning soggy and disintegrating into it.

Swap the plum

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

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, fennel, olive, carrot, celery, tomato, white wine. 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
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chickpea	1/2 cup canned (120g) drained	134
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Sourdough	1 slice (36g)	93
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Plum	1 medium (66g)	30
Fennel Bulb	1/2 bulb (87g)	27
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Oregano	1 tsp dried (1.8g)	5
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Bay Leaf	1 leaf (0.6g)	2
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Basil	5 leaves fresh (2.5g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Chickpea, Tomato and Bread Soup