Name: A Quickly Made Turnip Soup
Ingredients: 3 pounds young mild turnips, peeled and sliced; 5 pints veal or mutton stock (or good broth); 1 lump sugar; Salt, to taste; White pepper, to taste; 1 large white onion (optional); Cream (optional, for serving)

Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Quickly Made Turnip Soup

Ingredients

3 pounds young mild turnips, peeled and sliced
5 pints veal or mutton stock (or good broth)
1 lump sugar
Salt, to taste
White pepper, to taste
1 large white onion (optional)
Cream (optional, for serving)

Directions

Combine the turnips and stock in a pot and stew gently for 25 to 30 minutes until the turnips are soft.
Press the mixture through a sieve to create a smooth pulp.
Add another quart of stock, salt, white pepper, and sugar, then simmer for 1 to 2 minutes.
If desired, slice and stew the onion with the turnips for added flavor.
Skim the soup and serve hot, adding a little cream for improved color if desired.

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.

Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,827 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Turnip + white peppertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together275 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turnips: Form the body of the soup, becoming soft and pulpy when stewed and sieved.
Stock: Provides the liquid base and savory flavor for the soup.
Cream: Adds richness and a lighter, creamier color when stirred in at serving.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, veal, sugar, white pepper, cream):

Leekfits better
Arrowrootfits better
Parsnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, veal, sugar, white pepper, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.