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 ↓
Julienne Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the onion base
Fry the shredded onions in butter until brown.
Add mace, salt, pepper, and a spoonful of stock.
Mix flour with a little butter and fry with the onions.
Strain the mixture through a colander and add more stock as desired.
Add the vegetables
Boil the turnip, carrot, celery, and peas in water until tender.
Add the boiled vegetables and their water to the soup.
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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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked 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
- Onions
- Browning in butter builds the deep, sweet flavour that forms the soup's base.
- Flour
- Fried with butter, it thickens the stock and gives the soup body.
- Butter
- Carries the frying of onions and flour and adds richness.
- Turnip
- Cooked until tender, it adds mild flavour and soft texture to the soup.
- Carrot
- Cooked until tender, it adds sweetness and colour along with soft texture.
- Celery
- Cooked until tender, it adds savoury aroma and a soft vegetable body.
The step that matters
Frying the flour with the onions. Flour must cook in fat for a while to lose its raw starchy taste and to thicken evenly. Adding it without enough frying can leave lumps and a floury flavour.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, pepper, flour, turnip, carrot, celery):
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper, flour, turnip, carrot, 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.
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