Name: Mushroom Soup
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons flour; 1 onion, grated; 2 tablespoons butter; Chicken consomme; Cream; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Parsley, chopped

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

If using dried mushrooms, boil them until soft and cut into small pieces.
In a pan, brown the flour in the butter until golden.
Add the grated onion and some chopped parsley to the pan.
Pour in the chicken consomme and stir well.
Add a little cream, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, onion, butter, chicken, cream, pepper):

Garlicfits better
Thymefits about as well
Parsleythe original
Turmericfits about as well

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