Name: Cream of Broccoli Soup with Roasted Garlic Crostini
Ingredients: 1 French baguette, cut crosswise into ½-inch thick slices; 2 teaspoons olive oil; ½ cup chopped onion; ½ cup chopped celery; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1 carrot, peeled and chopped; 2 cups steamed broccoli; 3 cups reduced-sodium vegetable or chicken broth; 1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk; salt and freshly ground black pepper; ⅓ cup roasted garlic cloves

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + broccolitop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,072 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Broccoli: Provides the main vegetable flavor and body of the soup once puréed.
Evaporated milk: Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the puréed soup.
French baguette: Forms the crisp toasted base that holds the roasted garlic paste.
Roasted garlic cloves: Adds sweet, mellow garlic flavor to the crostini spread.
Vegetable or chicken broth: Supplies the liquid that cooks the vegetables and forms the soup base.

The step that matters

Puréeing the soup smooth before adding milk. Blending while the vegetables are fully softened breaks down their cell walls, giving a smooth texture. Adding evaporated milk after blending and simmering only briefly heats it through, which helps prevent curdling or a grainy result.

Swap the clove

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

Cuminfits better
Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, onion, celery, garlic, carrot, broccoli, chicken. 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
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Vegetable	1 tbsp (14g)	120
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Broccoli	1 cup chopped (156g)	55
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Cream of Broccoli Soup with Roasted Garlic Crostini