Name: Beef Soup
Ingredients: cracked joints of beef; cabbage; turnips; potatoes; coarse sea salt; black pepper; flour; water

Why it works: Cabbage and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Skim the beef broth thoroughly and boil slowly for 3 to 6 hours, depending on the size and quality of the meat.
One hour before serving, add quartered cabbage and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
After 15 minutes, add halved or quartered turnips.
After another 15 minutes, add whole or halved potatoes.
When done, remove the vegetables and meat, keeping them warm.
If the soup is too thin, add boiling water and stir in a mixture of flour and water to thicken.
Season to taste with salt and pepper, then serve immediately.

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 + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together562 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Swap the potato

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

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Horseradishfits better
Potatothe original

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