Name: Soup, Flemish Fashion
Ingredients: 6 turkey pinions; ¼ pound mutton; ½ pound pickled pork; good broth; a bundle of sweet herbs; a few cloves; pepper to taste; salt to taste

Why it works: Turkey and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 828 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Scald the turkey pinions, mutton, and pickled pork.
Combine all ingredients in a pan with good broth.
Add the bundle of sweet herbs, cloves, pepper, and salt.
Simmer until the flavors meld.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Turkey + porktop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together828 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together13,144 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Mutton + porktop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,237 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
Mutton + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Turkey + muttontop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together75 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turkey pinions: Provide the main body and rich meaty flavor of the soup.
Mutton: Adds savory depth and richness to the broth as it simmers.
Pickled pork: Contributes salty, cured flavor that seasons the broth.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, mutton, pork, pepper):

Sagebetter flavor fit
Thymebetter flavor fit
Marjorambetter flavor fit
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, mutton, pork, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.