Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Julienne Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the vegetables into very fine, narrow strips.
Cook the soup
Mix all the vegetables together in a stew-pan with butter, sugar, and salt.
Cover and let them stew for a few minutes.
Add the broth and boil until all the vegetables are thoroughly cooked.
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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Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,046 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together590 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together165 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,097 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Carrots, turnips, parsnips, cabbage, celery, leeks, potatoes, onions
- Form the body of the soup, providing bulk, texture and natural sweetness as they soften.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the vegetables as they stew.
- Broth
- Provides the liquid that cooks the vegetables through and forms the soup base.
The step that matters
Stewing the vegetables before adding the broth. Covering the vegetables and stewing them gently in butter draws out moisture and softens them slowly, concentrating flavour. Adding the broth too early would boil the vegetables instead, diluting that flavour.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, parsnip, cabbage, celery, leek, potato):
- Beetrootfits better
- Lettucefits better
- Jerusalem artichokefits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, parsnip, cabbage, celery, leek, potato. 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.
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