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
Melt the butter in a kettle over medium heat.
Fry the chopped onions until light brown.
Add the stock, carrots, turnips, and soaked peas to the kettle.
Season with salt, pepper, mace, and celery seed.
Boil the mixture for 2 hours.
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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Carrot + turniptop 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).
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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
- Dried peas
- Thicken the soup as they soften and add body and earthy flavour.
- Onions
- Build a sweet, browned savoury base through gentle frying.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid base that carries all the flavour and cooks the vegetables.
- Carrots
- Add natural sweetness and colour to the soup.
- Turnips
- Contribute mild sweetness and soft texture as they cook down.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, turnip, peas, pepper, celery):
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, turnip, peas, pepper, 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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