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Zelenchukova Supa

A hearty Bulgarian vegetable soup with carrots, celery, peppers, cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, beetroot, yogurt, egg, and kashkaval cheese.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the vegetable base

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, then add the carrots, celery, peppers, and cabbage. Cook until soft.

  2. Add the diced potatoes.

  3. Heat some oil in a pan, and add the onion. Cook until soft, then stir in the flour, paprika, and tomatoes.

  4. Stir the onion mixture into the boiling vegetables, and cook for another half hour.

  5. Add the beetroot.

Thicken and serve

  1. Combine the yogurt and egg, carefully mix in a bit of hot broth, then stir this mixture back into the soup to thicken it.

  2. Season with salt to taste.

  3. Serve with finely chopped parsley and grated kashkaval.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Potato + oniontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

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

  3. Celery + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,375 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,105 recipes

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

  5. Potato + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,797 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

Eggs
Egg and yogurt mixture thickens the soup when stirred in gently near the end.
Yogurt
Adds creaminess and tang, and helps thicken the soup when combined with egg.
Potatoes
Soft starchy cubes that give body to the soup as they cook.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and color to the base along with the onion and paprika.
Flour
Stirred into the cooked onion mixture to help lightly thicken the soup.
Beetroot
Adds earthy sweetness and a deep red color to the soup.

The step that matters

Tempering the yogurt and egg mixture. Adding cold yogurt and egg straight to boiling soup can curdle them. Mixing in a little hot broth first warms the mixture gradually so it blends smoothly and thickens evenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Broccoliabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, pepper, potato, sunflower, onion, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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