Name: A Good and Cheap Soup
Ingredients: 4 pounds lean beef or mutton; 6 carrots, sliced; 6 turnips, sliced or quartered; 3 onions, chopped; 2 tablespoons whole black pepper; 2 heads celery with green tops

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 ↓

A Good and Cheap Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

Cut the beef or mutton into slices and fry until brown.
Place the meat and its gravy in a stewpan.

Simmer the soup

Add the sliced carrots, turnips, chopped onions, whole black pepper, and celery.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the meat is tender.
Strain the soup and serve with or without the vegetables.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or mutton: Provides the main flavour and, as it simmers, tender meat and rich gravy.
Carrots: Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during simmering.
Turnips: Soften during simmering, adding mild sweetness and body to the broth.
Onions: Release savoury sweetness and aroma into the broth as they cook.
Celery: Adds aromatic, savoury flavour to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Frying the meat until brown. Browning the meat creates deeper, roasted flavours through the Maillard reaction, which then carry into the broth. Pale meat gives a flatter, less savoury soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, pepper, celery):

Parsnipfits better
Leekfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, pepper, celery. 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.

Roast Beef211 recipes

Beef Loaf175 recipes

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

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.

A Good and Cheap Soup