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Vegetable Soup

A soup made with carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, canned corn, peas, lima beans, tomatoes, rice, and stock, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, peel, and dice the vegetables.

Cook the soup

  1. In a large kettle, combine the water, carrots, and turnips; bring to a boil and cook for 30 minutes.

  2. Add all the other vegetables except the canned stock and rice; bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Add the stock, salt, pepper, and canned vegetables; bring to a boil.

Can the soup

  1. Shut off the heat, place in cans, cap, and process.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Peas + lima beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + sweet potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Corn + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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

Stock
Supplies most of the liquid, giving the soup its moisture and savory base.
Carrots
Hold their shape during simmering and add natural sweetness to the broth.
White potatoes
Their starch softens and slightly thickens the broth as they cook.
Sweet corn
Adds sweetness and a tender bite to the finished soup.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and deeper flavor to the broth.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and adds body to the soup as it cooks.

The step that matters

Process the filled cans. Vegetable soup is low in acid, so sealed cans can harbor spoilage bacteria. The cans must be heat-processed for the full required time and at the correct pressure, because under-processing leaves those organisms alive.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, sweet potato, potato, corn, peas, lima beans):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, sweet potato, potato, corn, peas, lima beans. 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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