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Vegetable Soup

A broth made from a soup bone, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, onion, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the crushed soup bone in a pot with 1 gallon of cold water and cook for 2 hours.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the tomatoes and slice them.

  2. Stew the tomatoes until smooth.

  3. Add the scraped corn to the tomatoes.

  4. Remove the pot from heat.

Finish the soup

  1. After 2 hours, add the cut potatoes to the pot and cook until soft.

  2. Remove the soup bone.

  3. Skim off any grease from the broth.

  4. Add the corn and tomato mixture along with the onion to the pot.

  5. Cook gently for 30 minutes.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

  7. Strain the soup.

  8. Serve.

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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soup bone
Simmers into the broth, adding body and savory flavor.
Tomatoes
Break down when stewed to give the soup acidity and a smooth body.
Corn
Adds natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and their starch thickens the broth slightly.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off any grease from the broth. Fat from the soup bone rises to the surface as the broth cooks. Removing it before the vegetables go in keeps the soup clean-tasting and prevents a greasy mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, corn, potato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, corn, potato, pepper. 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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