Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Another Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Place bones, onion, carrot, tomatoes, pepper, and cloves in a pot.
Boil for 2-3 hours.
Strain out the bones and tomato seeds, and skim off the fat.
Return the soup to the pot and add cold water.
Stir in arrowroot or ground rice or flour and sugar.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Place toasted bread squares in a tureen and pour the soup over them.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned 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
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, tomato, pepper, clove, arrowroot, sugar, bread):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Turnipbetter flavor fit
- Parsnipbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, tomato, pepper, clove, arrowroot, sugar, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
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