Name: Consomme
Ingredients: 1 onion, chopped; 1 turnip, chopped; 1 celery stalk, chopped; 1 hay leaf; 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped; 1 teaspoon peppercorns; 1 quart chicken stock; Salt to taste; Caramel for coloring (if necessary)

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Consomme

1 quart of consommé

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer and strain

Simmer the onion, turnip, celery, hay leaf, parsley, and peppercorns for 1 hour.
Add the chicken stock and salt to taste.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Strain the mixture.

Clarify and color

Cool it.
Remove the fat. Clarify.
Ensure there is 1 quart of consommé.
Color with caramel if necessary.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,842 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken stock: Forms the liquid base that the finished clear broth is built on.
Onion: Adds sweet, savory aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Celery: Contributes savory, aromatic flavor to the simmering broth.
Turnip: Adds mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Clarify. Clarifying traps fine particles in a cooled, egg-free or raft-based mass that is then strained off, leaving a clear broth. Boiling vigorously breaks up this raft and returns cloudiness to the consommé, so the liquid should stay at a gentle simmer.