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
Make the soup base
Fry the shredded onions in butter until brown.
Add mace, salt, pepper, and stock; mix well.
Rub flour smooth with a little butter and fry with the onions.
Strain the mixture through a colander and add more stock as desired.
Add the vegetables
Boil turnip, carrot, celery, and peas in a little water until tender.
Add the boiled vegetables and their water to the soup.
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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Turnip + carrottop 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).
-
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
- Onions
- Browning in butter builds the savoury, sweet base of the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup as it cooks with the fat and onions.
- Butter
- Carries the onions as they brown and adds richness to the base.
- Turnip
- Adds body and a mild sweetness to the soup as it cooks tender.
- Carrot
- Adds sweetness and body to the soup as it cooks tender.
The step that matters
Rub flour smooth with a little butter. Flour lumps form if it is added without being worked smooth in fat first. Cooking it briefly in the butter also removes raw flour taste and helps it thicken the soup evenly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, pepper, flour, turnip, carrot, celery):
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper, flour, turnip, carrot, 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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