Name: Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: 2 bunches carrots, chopped; 1 potato, washed and chopped; 1 (13-oz.) can tomatoes or 1 can tomato soup; 2 bunches onions, chopped; Any leftover or outer leaves of lettuce or cabbage; 3 quarts water; ½ cup rice

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

2 bunches carrots, chopped
1 potato, washed and chopped
1 (13-oz.) can tomatoes or 1 can tomato soup
2 bunches onions, chopped
Any leftover or outer leaves of lettuce or cabbage
3 quarts water
½ cup rice

Directions

Make the soup

Combine carrots, potato, tomatoes, onions, lettuce or cabbage leaves, and water in a large pot.
Bring to a boil and cook for 2 hours.
Strain the soup through a sieve.

Add the rice

Cook the rice separately, then strain and brown it.
Add the browned rice and its water to the soup and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together976 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

Carrots: Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during long simmering.
Potato: Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it a fuller texture.
Tomatoes: Add acidity and savory depth, and contribute liquid and body to the broth.
Onions: Build flavor through their sugars and aromatic compounds as they cook down.
Rice: Absorbs liquid and softens, adding body and thickening the soup.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, potato, tomato, onion, rice):

Capsicumfits better
Okrafits better
Broccolifits about as well
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, potato, tomato, onion, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.