Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓
Dried or Split Pea Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the stock from the leg of mutton or calf's head.
If using pork stock, discard some of the liquid if it's too salty and mix with fresh water.
Add the sliced celery, carrot, turnip, and onions to the boiling stock.
Simmer until the vegetables are tender and the flavors meld.
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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Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, celery, carrot, turnip):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Lettucefits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, celery, carrot, turnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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