Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Ox-tail Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the pieces of ox-tail from the soup and keep them hot.
Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a basin.
Skim off all the fat and return the soup to the saucepan.
Add the pieces of ox-tail back into the soup and heat until almost boiling.
Stir in the wine and adjust seasoning if needed.
Remove cooked pieces of carrot, turnip, and onion, cut into fancy shapes, and add them to the soup with the wine.
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.
-
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Wine + carrottop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,271 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-sec-butyl-2-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
-
Wine + oniontop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, carrot, turnip):
- Parsnipfits better
- Leekfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against wine, carrot, turnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Carrot Soup134 recipes
Turnip Soup43 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes