Name: Julienne Soup
Ingredients: good stock; 4 to 5 egg whites, well beaten; salt to taste; pepper to taste; boiled carrots, cut into small pieces; boiled turnips, cut into small pieces; boiled celery, cut into small pieces; optional: boiled French beans, asparagus tops, peas, tarragon

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

good stock
4 to 5 egg whites, well beaten
salt to taste
pepper to taste
boiled carrots, cut into small pieces
boiled turnips, cut into small pieces
boiled celery, cut into small pieces
optional: boiled French beans, asparagus tops, peas, tarragon

Directions

Prepare a clear stock, removing any fat and sediment.
In a stewpan, combine the stock with the beaten egg whites, salt, and pepper.
Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
Strain the soup through a fine sieve or jelly bag.
Place the boiled vegetables in a tureen.
Pour the hot soup over the vegetables in the tureen.

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).
Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together292 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the beans

The recipe marks beans as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, carrot, turnip, celery, asparagus, peas):

Beansthe original
Lentilsfits about as well
Chestnutfits less well
Chickpeafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, carrot, turnip, celery, asparagus, peas. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.