Name: White Soup
Ingredients: clear soup stock; 2-3 tablespoons oatmeal or cracked wheat or farina or barley (cooked until tender); pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

clear soup stock
2-3 tablespoons oatmeal or cracked wheat or farina or barley (cooked until tender)
pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Directions

Take the clear part of the soup stock.
Add 2-3 tablespoons of cooked oatmeal, cracked wheat, farina, or barley.
Season with a pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon, salt, and pepper to taste.

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.

Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together359 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Wheat + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together984 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).