Name: Soup À LA Reine
Ingredients: 1 old hen; 3 pints white stock; 2 oz lean ham; 1 bunch sweet herbs; 1 onion; 1 carrot

Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soup À LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

Place the old hen in a pot with the white stock.
Add the lean ham, sweet herbs, onion, and carrot.
Simmer until the hen is cooked through.
Remove the hen and strain the broth through a fine sieve.

Serve

Serve the soup hot.

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.

Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,159 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Ham + carrottop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Old hen: Gives the soup its main body and rich meaty flavour as it simmers.
White stock: Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Lean ham: Adds savoury, salty depth to the broth.
Onion: Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury background to the broth.
Carrot: Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.