Name: Dressy Soup
Ingredients: 1 red purl of cum; 1 turnip; 2 leeks; 1 small load of celery; 2 quarts water; 1 crust of bread

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dressy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the red pepper of cumin, turnip, leeks, and celery into small pieces.
Boil the chopped vegetables in 2 quarts of water until tender.
Strain the mixture through a colander.

Finish the soup

Add the crust of bread to the strained liquid and boil for 1 hour.
Strain again through a fine sieve and season to taste.
If the soup is too thick, add more water.

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.

Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,046 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,093 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Leek + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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

Bread crust: Softens and breaks down in the hot liquid, adding body and thickening the soup.
Leeks: Cook down in the water to build a mild, savory flavor base for the broth.
Turnip: Softens as it boils, adding body and a subtle sweetness to the broth.
Celery: Releases aromatic flavor into the water, giving the soup its savory base.