Name: Chicken Noodle Soup to Cure What Ails You
Ingredients: Olive oil; 1 onion, chopped; 1 large clove garlic, minced; 2 carrots cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices; 2 ribs celery, sliced; 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme; 1 bay leaf; 6-8 cups chicken broth; Cooked chicken � at least 2 cups or as much or little as you like; 8 Oz noodles; Fresh parsley, chopped

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).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,563 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

Onion: Softens and turns translucent, building a sweet aromatic base for the soup.
Carrots: Add sweetness and firm texture that holds up during simmering.
Celery: Adds savory aroma and a crisp-tender texture to the soup.
Chicken broth: Forms the liquid base that carries flavor and cooks the noodles.
Noodles: Absorb broth and provide the starchy, chewy body of the soup.
Cooked chicken: Adds protein and savory meatiness to the broth.

Swap the clove

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

Parsleyfits better
Cuminfits better
Rosemaryfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, thyme, 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
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Bay Leaf	1 leaf (0.6g)	2
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1

Chicken Noodle Soup to Cure What Ails You