Name: Noodle Soup
Ingredients: 4 pounds fresh meat (except pork); 1 gallon cold water; 1 head of celery; Salt and pepper to taste; 4 ounces vermicelli or homemade noodle strips; 3 eggs; Flour (for dough); Water (for dough)

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Noodle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

Place the meat in a large pot with cold water and cover it.
Boil gently until the meat is tender.
Add the head of celery and continue cooking for 30 minutes.
Remove from heat, strain the broth, and return it to the pot.
Season with salt and pepper.

Finish the soup

Scald the vermicelli in boiling water, then add it to the soup.
Let it boil for 10 minutes before serving.

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,208 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,905 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh meat: Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth as it simmers, giving the soup body.
Celery: Adds aromatic flavor to the broth during the final simmer.
Vermicelli or noodle strips: Provide the starchy bite and body that make this a noodle soup.
Eggs: Listed in the record but no preparation step uses them, so their role here is not stated.