Name: White Soup
Ingredients: 2 turnips; 3 large raw potatoes; ½ onion; 3 pints milk; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; a little celery salt; 1 tablespoon butter; 2 stalks celery (optional)

Why it works: Turnip and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and mash the vegetables

Boil the turnips until they begin to soften.
Add the potatoes and onion, and boil until tender.
Drain the water and mash the vegetables.

Finish the soup

Stir in the milk, salt, pepper, celery salt, and butter.
If using, boil the celery with the vegetables and omit the celery salt.

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.

Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Their starch thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, creamy body when mashed.
Turnips: They add body and a mildly sweet, earthy flavour to the mashed base.
Milk: It makes up the liquid and adds richness, creaminess and mild sweetness.
Butter: Its fat adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onion: It contributes savoury aroma and depth of flavour to the vegetable base.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, potato, onion, milk, pepper, butter):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits about as well
Garlicfits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, potato, onion, milk, pepper, butter. 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.