Name: Tomato Soup
Ingredients: 1/2 pound lean ham; 2 turnips, chopped; 2 carrots, chopped; 1 onion, chopped; 1 stalk celery, chopped; 2 tablespoons fresh butter; 2 quarts diluted stock or meat broth; 8-10 ripe tomatoes, chopped; Salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,173 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

In a pot, stew the turnips, carrots, onions, and celery with the ham and butter over low heat for about 1 hour.
Add the diluted stock and chopped tomatoes, then stew for another 1.5 hours.
Pass the mixture through a sieve back into the pot.
Season with salt and pepper, then boil for 10 minutes.
Serve hot.

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.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together10,173 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,002 recipes

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

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Provide the main flavour and body of the soup as they break down during stewing.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavour from the vegetables and ham.
Turnips: Add a mild, sweet vegetable base that thickens the soup as it stews.
Carrots: Contribute natural sweetness and body to the stewed base.
Lean ham: Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the stock as it cooks.
Stock or meat broth: Supplies the liquid that cooks the vegetables and forms the soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, onion, celery, butter, meat, tomato):

Potatobetter flavor fit
Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
Leekabout as good a flavor fit
Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, onion, celery, butter, meat, tomato. 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).

“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.