Name: Turtle Soup
Ingredients: 2 pounds conger eel (or 1 to 1.5 pounds ordinary fresh eels); fresh parsley; brown bread and butter

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 ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

2 pounds conger eel (or 1 to 1.5 pounds ordinary fresh eels)
fresh parsley
brown bread and butter

Directions

Boil the conger eel in stock for at least 1 hour. If using ordinary eels, cut them into 2-inch pieces and boil gently in the stock until tender.
Remove the eels with a strainer and place them in boiling water for 1 minute.
Transfer the eels to a dish and cover with boiling water, adding a couple of sprigs of fresh parsley.
Strain the soup carefully and, if necessary, clarify it with 2 egg whites, then run it through a jelly bag a few times.
Place the soup in an enamelled saucepan and add the turtle flesh, boiling until tender.

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).
Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).