Name: Clear Soup
Ingredients: 2-3 pints good stock; ½ pound lean beef; 1 carrot; 1 turnip; white part of 1 leek

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Skim the stock to remove fat.
Cut the beef into very small pieces, discarding fat and sinew.
Clean and scrape the carrot to a pulp.
Cut the turnip into dice and the leek into small pieces.
Put the cold stock into a stewpan.
Stir in the beef and vegetables.
Keep stirring until the contents are well combined.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,046 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,310 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + leektop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together659 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).