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Vegetable Soup

A simple vegetable soup made with carrots, celery, onion, turnip, potatoes, parsley, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a large pot, melt 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped carrot, celery, onion, and turnip.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the diced potatoes and cover the pot.

  5. Cook for an additional 2 minutes.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in the water and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and the chopped parsley.

  4. Season to taste and 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the vegetables as they cook in the pot.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the broth slightly as they break down.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and colour, and holds its shape during the long simmer.
Onion
Builds a savoury aromatic base as it softens in the butter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, turnip, potato, parsley, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, turnip, potato, parsley, butter. 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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