Name: Cottage Cheese and Peanut-butter Soup
Ingredients: 1 cup cottage cheese; 1 tablespoon baking soda; 1 tablespoon peanut butter; 1 slice onion; 1 small bay leaf; a pinch of powdered sage; 1 cup milk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cottage Cheese and Peanut-butter Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make a thin cottage cheese sauce by neutralizing the acid of the cheese with baking soda.
Blend the peanut butter with the cottage cheese before adding the sauce.
Use 1 tablespoon of peanut butter for each cup of sauce.
Season with a slice of onion, a small bay leaf, and a pinch of powdered sage heated with the milk.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Peanut + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,043 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cottage cheese + buttertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together376 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cottage cheese + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together239 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cottage cheese, peanut, butter, onion, milk):

Garlicfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Celeryfits better
Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, peanut, butter, onion, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.