Name: Turtle Soup
Ingredients: 1 turtle; slices of ham; 2-3 knuckles of veal; sweet herbs (basil, marjoram, lemon-thyme, parsley, green onions); 1 large onion with 6 cloves; boiling water

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cut off the turtle's head and hang it until the next day.
Open the turtle, draining all blood and water.
Remove the flesh from the spine and legs, avoiding the gall, then wash and drain the meat.
In a large pot of boiling water, cook the breast shell until the plates separate easily.
Boil the back and belly until the softer parts can be removed, then cool them separately.
In a large stew pan, layer ham, veal, turtle flesh, and legs.
Add a bunch of sweet herbs and a clove-studded onion.
Moisten with the boiling water from the shell and the cooking liquid from the back and belly.
Once the legs are tender, remove them and set aside for the sauce.

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.

Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together688 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,979 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,768 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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 (ham, veal, basil, marjoram, lemon, thyme, parsley):

Carrotfits better
Shallotfits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, basil, marjoram, lemon, thyme, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.