Name: Consomme Carmen
Ingredients: 1 quart consomme; ½ cup raw tomato puree; 1 small tomato, peeled and diced; 1 tablespoon mild capsicum, cut into julienne; 1 tablespoon plain boiled rice; small pinch of chervil

Why it works: Tomato and capsicum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,520 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Consomme Carmen

Ingredients

1 quart consomme
½ cup raw tomato puree
1 small tomato, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon mild capsicum, cut into julienne
1 tablespoon plain boiled rice
small pinch of chervil

Directions

Prepare the consomme

Prepare 1 quart of consommé.
Add ½ cup of raw tomato puree while clarifying to give it a faint pink tinge.

Garnish and serve

Peel and dice a small tomato.
Poach the diced tomato in a little of the consommé.
Place the poached tomato in a soup tureen with 1 tablespoon of julienned mild capsicum and 1 tablespoon of plain boiled rice.
Pour the boiling consommé over the garnish.
Add a small pinch of chervil.
Serve immediately.

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.

Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,065 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Capsicum + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Capsicum + cherviltop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together235 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Rice + cherviltop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together91 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw tomato puree: Gives the clarifying consommé a faint pink tinge and adds tomato flavour.
Plain boiled rice: Serves as a starchy garnish that adds body and soft texture to the soup.