Name: Julienne Soup
Ingredients: ¼ firm white cabbage, shredded; 1 small turnip, peeled and diced; 1 carrot, peeled and cut into thin strips; 1 teaspoon onion, finely shredded; 3 raw tomatoes, peeled and chopped; 1 tablespoon minced parsley; 3 stalks celery, thinly sliced

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Julienne Soup

Ingredients

¼ firm white cabbage, shredded
1 small turnip, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and cut into thin strips
1 teaspoon onion, finely shredded
3 raw tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon minced parsley
3 stalks celery, thinly sliced

Directions

Shred the cabbage for cold slaw.
Peel and dice the turnip.
Peel and cut the carrot into thin strips.
Finely shred the onion.
Peel and chop the tomatoes.
Minced the parsley and slice the celery.
Use a sharp knife to minimize bruising the vegetables.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, turnip, carrot, onion, parsley, celery):

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Broccolifits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, turnip, carrot, onion, parsley, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.