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Veselka’s Cabbage Soup

introduced me to this soup. I think it was July 2007 and she’d gathered a bunch of food bloggers at , a Ukranian diner in the East Village famous for serving awesome beer-blotting food like borsht, stuffed cabbage and pierogis around the clock. It was hot and humid out, however, so the thought of anything besides a grilled kielbasa, pickles and a cold beer seemed insane, and yet there was our host, ordering cabbage soup.

By smittenkitchen · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,839 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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By smittenkitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + cabbagetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,839 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pork + chickentop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Allspice + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Marjoram + carrottop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, chicken, marjoram, potato, carrot, celery, onion):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, chicken, marjoram, potato, carrot, celery, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).