Name: Turnip Soup, the French Way
Ingredients: 1 head of celery; 1 large onion; 1 blade of beaten mace; 2 large turnips; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; 6 slices of bread or crusts of a French roll

Why it works: Celery and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip Soup, the French Way

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

Combine warm water, celery, onion, and mace in a stew pan.
Cover and cook over low heat until vegetables are soft, about 30 minutes.
Rub the soup through a fine sieve into a clean stew pan.

Finish and serve

Cut one turnip into small dice and boil until tender.
Season with salt and add the boiled turnip.
Heat the soup for another 10 minutes before serving.
Cut bread into dice and fry until golden.
Dry the crusts of a French roll before serving on a plate.

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.

Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,676 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,110 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Adds aromatic flavour to the stock as it softens and gives the soup its base taste.
Onion: Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens into the base.
Turnips: Provide the body of the soup and a mild, slightly sweet flavour once cooked.
Bread: Fried into golden dice to add crunch as a contrast to the smooth soup.

The step that matters

Rubbing the soup through a fine sieve. Pushing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks them down into a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup gritty and uneven.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, onion, turnip, bread):

Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, onion, turnip, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Turnip Soup, the French Way