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The Ultimate Makeover: French Onion Soup

Angela Nilsen gives the French classic a makeover, losing the butter and beef stock to make a lighter soup that's still full of flavour

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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The Ultimate Makeover: French Onion Soup

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,058 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The Ultimate Makeover: French Onion Soup

Serves 4
Prep30 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By bbcgoodfood. 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Thyme + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,503 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, thyme, white wine, flour, garlic):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Fennelbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, thyme, white wine, flour, garlic. 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).