Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓
Peas Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Break the bones and place them in a pot with 4 quarts of cold water.
Add 2 to 3 pounds of split peas, carrots, turnips, onions, celery, thyme, and peppers.
Bring to a boil and cook for 2 hours, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
Once the peas are soft, strain the soup through a sieve into another pot.
Rub the peas through the sieve to mix the pulp with the soup.
Add salt dissolved in a little water and boil for a few more minutes.
Serve with small square pieces of toasted bread in the tureen.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,563 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,193 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, celery, thyme, pepper, bread):
- Lentilsfits better
- Beansfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, celery, thyme, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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