Name: Sweet Potato Soup
Ingredients: 6 small or 4 medium-sized sweet potatoes; 2 tablespoons finely-ground pine nuts; 1 quart hot water; 1 small onion, grated; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon celery seed; 2 tablespoons olive oil; a dash of cayenne pepper

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 ↓

Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

Boil the sweet potatoes until done, then peel and mash them through a sieve.
Dissolve the pine nuts in hot water.
Add the grated onion, salt, and celery seed.
Boil for 10 minutes.

Finish the soup

Strain the soup and mix in the sweet potatoes.
Return to the heat, add olive oil and cayenne pepper.
Boil for a few minutes.

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).
Pine + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,062 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sweet potato + pinetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together21 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sweet potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together950 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes: Provide the main body and creamy texture of the soup once mashed.
Pine nuts: Add richness and body to the broth when finely ground and dissolved in it.
Olive oil: Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onion: Contributes aromatic flavor and mild sweetness when grated into the broth.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, pine, onion, celery, olive, pepper):

Chickpeafits better
Beansfits better
Lentilsfits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, pine, onion, celery, olive, 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.