Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Julienne Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Sauté the shredded onions in butter until brown.
Add mace, salt, pepper, and a spoonful of stock.
Mix flour with a little butter until smooth and fry the mixture with the onions.
Strain the mixture through a colander.
Add more stock if desired.
Cook the vegetables and finish
Boil the turnip, carrot, and celery fillets with green peas in water until tender.
Add the boiled vegetables and their water to the soup.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Onions
- Sweetness and savory depth as they brown in the butter.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup and gives it body once fried with the butter.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps the onions brown and the flour cook.
- Stock
- Provides the main liquid and savory flavor of the soup.
- Turnip
- Adds mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavor and texture as it softens.
The step that matters
Fry the flour with the onions. Flour must be cooked in fat until smooth before liquid is added, or it stays starchy and forms lumps. Cooking it also removes raw flour taste and lets the soup thicken evenly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, pepper, flour, turnip, carrot, celery):
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper, flour, turnip, carrot, celery. 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.
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