Name: Charlotte's Tortellini Soup
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 6 + servings
Ingredients: 1 pound sausage; 1 cup chopped onion; 2 cups sliced carrots; 1 cup sliced celery; 6 cups beef broth; 1/2 cup red wine; 1 (16 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, with liquid; 1 cup ketchup; 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1 cup zucchini, sliced; 1 pound fresh tortellini pasta; 1 red bell pepper, diced; 1/4 cup chopped parsley; salt and pepper to taste; 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

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

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, celery, beef, red wine, tomato, ketchup):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Garlicfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, celery, beef, red wine, tomato, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Beef	100g cooked	250
Pork	100g cooked	242
Pasta	1 cup cooked (140g)	220
Parmesan Cheese	1 oz (28g)	110
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Cucumber	1/2 cup sliced (52g)	16
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Charlotte's Tortellini Soup