Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the stock in a pot.
Sauté the onion and parsley in the stock until softened.
Strain the mixture to remove solids.
Add the mushrooms to the strained stock and heat through.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,626 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,132 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Onion
- Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding aromatic depth to the stock.
- Mushrooms
- Add earthy flavor and savory body to the strained stock.
- Stock
- Serves as the cooking liquid that carries the flavor of the soup.
The step that matters
Sauté the onion and parsley until softened. Cooking the onion until fully soft breaks down its cell structure and mellows its sharp flavor. Undercooked onion tastes harsh and raw in the finished soup.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mushroom):
- Garlicfits better
- Thymefits better
- Celeryfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mushroom. 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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