Name: Carrot Sour
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter; 4 heads of celery, finely chopped; 6 large carrots, grated (use only the red part); 1 pint stock; 2 quarts stock; crumbs of 2 French rolls

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Carrot Sour

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the onions and place them in a stew-pan with the butter.
Add the chopped celery and grated carrots.
Pour in 1 pint of stock and simmer for 2 hours.
Add 2 quarts of stock and the crumbs of the French rolls.
Boil gently for 30 minutes, then rub through a fine sieve.
Keep the soup hot in a small pot without boiling.

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.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Butter + carrottop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,083 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + celerytop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).