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 ↓
Kidney Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Place marrow or butter at the bottom of a pot.
Add meat and bones to brown, turning to avoid burning.
Once browned, add 1 pint of cold water and a little salt.
After 15 minutes, add more cold water as needed.
Add sliced carrots, turnip, onions, celery, sweet herbs, and whole peppers.
Let the soup boil slowly for about 5 hours.
Remove from heat and let it settle.
Skim off the fat and strain through a fine sieve.
Serve with toasted bread cut into small squares.
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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Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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 (carrot, turnip, celery, pepper):
- Parsnipfits better
- Leekfits better
- Lettucefits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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