Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Cold Beep Bone, Pieoes Op Steak, Etc
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
In a pot, combine water, carrots, turnips, onion, cloves, pepper, salt, and tomatoes.
Boil gently for 3-4 hours.
Strain the mixture and return the soup to the pot.
Mix flour with a little water and stir it into the soup.
Let it boil for 10 minutes.
Serve
Add the pieces of toast before serving.
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 + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 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
What each ingredient does
- Carrots
- Break down during long simmering to add sweetness and body to the soup.
- Turnips
- Soften during simmering and give the soup a mildly earthy, sharp flavor.
- Onion
- Releases savory sweetness into the broth as it cooks slowly.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup slightly when stirred in and brought to a boil.
The step that matters
Stirring in the flour mixture. Flour must be mixed with water first so it disperses without lumps. Then it needs to boil so the starch swells and thickens the soup properly.
Swap the tomato
The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, clove, pepper, flour):
- Parsnipfits better
- Leekfits better
- Okrafits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, clove, pepper, flour. 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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