Oyster Soup Without Oysters

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.

1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together81,283 recipes

   Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

2. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
   Smell alikestrong
   Cooked together2,874 recipes

   Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

3. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together5,252 recipes

   Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
   Smell alikelow
   Cooked together124,287 recipes

   Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
   Smell alikelow
   Cooked together78,219 recipes

   Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk

Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy body.

Turnip

Cooked soft and mashed, it thickens the soup and gives it body and mild sweetness.

Flour

Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and milk, giving it a smoother texture.

Butter

Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavor and smoothing the texture.

The step that matters

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, turnip, butter, pepper):

1. Parsleyfits better
2. Cinnamonfits better
3. Capersfits better
4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, turnip, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.