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Vegetable Soup

A simple soup made with tomatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, rice, turnips, potatoes, onion, celery, carrots, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and peel the vegetables.

  2. Finely chop the vegetables using a food grinder or meat chopper.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot.

  2. Cook until the vegetables and rice are soft.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Rice
Thickens the soup slightly as its starch softens during cooking.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook, adding body and thickening the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid, forming the base of the broth.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body as they soften.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, parsley, pepper, rice, turnip, potato, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, pepper, rice, turnip, potato, 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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