Name: Corn Soup
Ingredients: 4 pounds leg of beef, cut into 4 pieces; 1 pint tomatoes, peeled and chopped; 2 tablespoons parsley leaves, chopped; 2 tablespoons celery leaves, chopped; 6 ears sugar corn, grated and scraped off the cob (½ cup); Salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Corn Soup

Ingredients

4 pounds leg of beef, cut into 4 pieces
1 pint tomatoes, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons parsley leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons celery leaves, chopped
6 ears sugar corn, grated and scraped off the cob (½ cup)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Place the beef in a kettle and cover with cold water.
Skim off any impurities just before it begins to boil.
Cover and simmer for 5 hours.
After 4 hours, add the tomatoes, parsley, and celery; boil for 45 minutes.
Remove the beef and add the grated corn; cook for 15 minutes after it starts boiling again.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef leg: Long simmering releases flavor and gelatin, giving the broth body and richness.
Tomatoes: Add acidity and a fresh, savory flavor that balances the sweet corn.
Sugar corn: Adds natural sweetness and body to the soup as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skim off impurities just before boiling. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the broth and muddy its flavor.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, celery, sugar, corn, pepper):

Oreganofits better
Basilfits better
Cuminfits better
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, celery, sugar, corn, pepper. 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.