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Vegetable Soup

A hearty vegetable soup made with onions, carrots, turnips, potatoes, celery, mushrooms, bread, stock, and a touch of Harvey's sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 28 ingredients
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Illustration of Vegetable SoupIllustration

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 16,001 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Also mentioned in the method: butter

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut up the onions, carrots, and turnips. Wash and drain them well.

  2. Put them in the stewpan with the butter and powdered sugar.

  3. Toss the whole over a sharp fire for 10 minutes, but do not let them brown.

  4. When done, pour the stock or boiling water on them.

Stew the soup

  1. Add the bread, celery, herbs, and seasoning.

  2. Stew for 3 hours.

  3. Skim well and strain it off.

  4. When ready to serve, add a little sliced carrot, celery, and turnip.

  5. Flavour with a spoonful of Harvey's sauce, or a little ketchup.

Make the purée

  1. Peel the vegetables, and cut them up into small pieces.

  2. Toast the bread rather brown.

  3. Put all into a stewpan with the water and seasoning.

  4. Simmer gently for 3 hours, or until all is reduced to a pulp.

  5. Pass it through a sieve in the same way as pea-soup.

  6. Warm it up again when required.

  7. Put in the Harvey's sauce. If necessary, add to the flavouring.

Garnish and serve

  1. Cut the vegetables into slices about ¼ inch in thickness, stamp them out with the cutter.

  2. Boil them for a few minutes in salt and water, until tender.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Celery + turniptop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,045 recipes

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

  5. Celery + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the soup's flavour.
Bread
Thickens the soup and adds body as it breaks down.
Onions
Build savoury aroma and depth as they soften.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the soup.
Turnips
Add earthy flavour and body as they break down.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Toss the vegetables without browning them. Gentle heat softens the vegetables and draws out their flavour while keeping the soup pale. Browning over a sharp fire changes the flavour and colour, so the soup can taste bitter or dark.

Flavor stand-ins for the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, sugar, pepper, sauce, mutton, potato, turnip):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, sugar, pepper, sauce, mutton, potato, turnip. 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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