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Palestine Soup

A hearty vegetable and ham soup made with onions, turnips, carrots, potatoes, butter, ham, parsley, flour, stock, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Palestine Soup

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

Palestine Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. In a stew pan or soup pot, combine the onions, turnips, carrots, potatoes, butter, ham, and parsley.

  2. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour until well mixed.

  4. Add the meat stock and boiling milk, stirring until boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with pepper, salt, and sugar.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve and return it to the pot.

  3. Bring to a boil once, skim, and serve with a piece of fried bread.

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.

  1. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the soup with fat, giving the vegetables a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Potatoes
Break down during cooking and help thicken the soup for a fuller body.
Flour
Thickens the stock and milk into a smooth, lightly body-rich soup.
Ham
Adds savory, salty meaty flavor to the stock base.
Onions
Build the aromatic savory base of the soup as they soften.
Turnips
Contribute earthy sweetness and bulk to the puréed vegetable base.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour added to hot fat and vegetables can clump if not stirred well. Mixing it evenly before adding liquid lets it dissolve smoothly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, potato, butter, ham, parsley, flour):

  1. Leekbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, potato, butter, ham, parsley, flour. 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.

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