Name: Beef Soup
Ingredients: bones and trimmings from a sirloin steak; 3 quarts water; 2 onions, sliced; 1 carrot, sliced; 3 potatoes, sliced; parsley, finely chopped; 1 red pepper; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

Place bones and trimmings in a pot with 3 quarts of water.
Bring the pot to a boil.
Simmer steadily until about an hour before dinner.

Add vegetables and finish

Add sliced onions, carrot, potatoes, parsley, red pepper, and salt.
Continue to simmer until vegetables are tender.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 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

Bones and trimmings from a sirloin steak: Release flavor and gelatin into the water during long simmering, giving the broth body.
Potatoes: Soften during simmering and add starch that gives the soup more body.
Onions: Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the broth.