Name: Potage Brunoise--brunoise Soup
Ingredients: assorted vegetables (excluding lettuce and sorrel); barley (optional for garnish); rice (optional for garnish); small chicken quenelles (optional for garnish)

Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potage Brunoise--brunoise Soup

Ingredients

assorted vegetables (excluding lettuce and sorrel)
barley (optional for garnish)
rice (optional for garnish)
small chicken quenelles (optional for garnish)

Directions

Cut the vegetables into ¼ inch squares.
Cook the vegetables following the same method as for Julienne soup.
Garnish with barley, rice, or small chicken quenelles if desired.

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.

Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together317 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Barley + ricetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together568 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Lettuce + barleytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together33 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lettuce + ricetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together520 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).