Name: Cabbage Soup
Ingredients: 1 small soup bone; 1 small head of cabbage, chopped finely; 1 teacup (about ½ cup) of rice; 1 tablespoon chopped celery (or 1 teaspoon celery salt)

Why it works: Cabbage and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,840 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

1 small soup bone
1 small head of cabbage, chopped finely
1 teacup (about ½ cup) of rice
1 tablespoon chopped celery (or 1 teaspoon celery salt)

Directions

Boil the soup bone in water to make stock.
Add the chopped cabbage, rice, and chopped celery (or celery salt) to the stock.
Boil until the vegetables and rice are soft.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

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.

Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,169 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together361 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

Rice: Absorbs liquid and softens, thickening the soup and adding body.
Cabbage: Provides the main vegetable bulk and tender texture as it cooks down in the stock.
Soup bone: Releases flavour and gelatin into the water to make the stock.