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Mixed Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with cabbage, carrots, potatoes, turnip, onion, leek, tomatoes, celery, green pepper, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mixed Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the water to a rolling boil in a large pot.

  2. Add all the vegetables except the potatoes and tomatoes, then boil rapidly for 10 minutes.

  3. Reduce heat to maintain a gentle boil for 1 hour.

  4. After 1 hour, add the potatoes, tomatoes, butter, green pepper, salt, and pepper.

  5. Cook for an additional hour with the lid partially off.

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.

  1. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the soup and adds mild sweetness as it simmers.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, thickening the broth slightly and giving it body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and savory depth, and break down to color and flavor the broth.
Butter or drippings
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the potatoes and tomatoes after the first hour. Potatoes added too early break down and turn mushy, while tomatoes added too early can dull fresh flavor. Waiting until the vegetables are nearly tender keeps texture and flavor distinct.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, carrot, potato, turnip, onion, leek, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, carrot, potato, turnip, onion, leek, celery. 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.

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