Name: Soup
Ingredients: water; beef or pork (optional); leg of mutton (optional); neck of mutton (optional); bones from a calf's head (optional); vegetables (for seasoning); bread, rice, or vermicelli (for thickening)

Why it works: Beef and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Use the water in which beef or pork has been boiled, but dilute it with fresh water if too salty.
If using mutton, add small amounts of additional ingredients to enhance flavor.
For a calf's head, add bones after the meat is cooked to create a jelly-like consistency.
Season with vegetables and, if desired, thicken with bread, rice, or vermicelli.

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.

Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).