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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef bone, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cover the soup bone with water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 2 hours.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool; skim off any grease.

Add the meat and vegetables

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces and return to the pot.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and add the vegetables.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour, then stir in the Worcestershire sauce.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix flour with a little water to make a smooth paste.

  2. Stir the paste into the soup and let it boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove the pot to a cooler part of the stove until ready to 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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  4. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup broth when mixed into a smooth paste and boiled.
Beef soup bone
Gives the broth its meaty flavor as it simmers in water.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the soup as they cook in the broth.
Okra
Adds body and thickening to the soup as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour paste into the soup. Flour clumps if added dry or unmixed. Mixing it smooth with a little water first lets the starch disperse evenly, and boiling for a few minutes lets the starch swell and thicken the broth.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, corn, beans, sauce, pepper, carrot):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, corn, beans, sauce, pepper, carrot. 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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