Name: Consomme Carmen
Ingredients: 1 quart of consommé; ¼ pint of raw tomato puree; 1 small tomato; 1 tablespoon mild capsicum, diced; 1 tablespoon plain boiled rice; small pinch of chervil

Why it works: Tomato and capsicum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,520 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Consomme Carmen

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the consommé

Prepare 1 quart of consommé and clarify it.
Add ¼ pint of raw tomato puree to give a faint pink tinge.

Assemble and serve

Peel and dice the small tomato, then poach it in a little of the consommé.
Place the poached tomato in a soup tureen with 1 tablespoon of diced mild capsicum and 1 tablespoon of plain boiled rice.
Pour the boiling consommé over the garnish and add a small pinch of chervil.
Serve immediately.

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.

Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,065 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Capsicum + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,890 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together235 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Rice + cherviltop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together91 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

Raw tomato puree: Gives the consommé a faint pink colour and a light tomato flavour.
Consommé: Forms the clear, savoury liquid base of the soup.