Name: Creole Soup
Ingredients: ½ cup rice; ½ can shrimps, cut up; 1 stalk yellow celery, chopped; 1½ quarts soup stock or consommé

Why it works: Rice and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,169 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creole Soup

Ingredients

½ cup rice
½ can shrimps, cut up
1 stalk yellow celery, chopped
1½ quarts soup stock or consommé

Directions

Prepare

Soften the rice in water.
Cut up the shrimps and chop the celery.

Cook

Combine the rice, shrimps, and celery in a pot.
Pour the soup stock or consommé over the mixture.
Bring to a simmer and cook until heated through.

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.

Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,169 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + shrimptop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,055 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
Shrimp + celerytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together812 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Softened first, it thickens the soup and adds body as it cooks.
Shrimps: Provide the main seafood flavor and protein in the soup.
Yellow celery: Adds aromatic, savory flavor and a little crisp texture to the soup.
Soup stock or consommé: Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.