Name: A White Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: 3 cups water; 2 carrots, diced; 2 turnips, diced; 2 onions, diced; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; a pinch of mace; 2 cups stock

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 ↓

A White Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine water, carrots, turnips, onions, celery, salt, and mace.
Boil for 1 hour.
Add stock and boil for an additional 45 minutes.
Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,592 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,078 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).