Name: Crecy Soup
Ingredients: 2 ounces white bread crumbs; 2 carrots; butter; stock

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Crecy Soup

Ingredients

2 ounces white bread crumbs
2 carrots
butter
stock

Directions

Cook the white bread crumbs with the carrots until soft.
Use only the red outer part of the carrots for color.
Blend the cooked carrots with tapioca to create a smooth puree.
Serve the soup with bread cut into dice, fried in butter or crisped in the oven after soaking in stock.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + carrottop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,628 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,083 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).