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Vegetable Soup

A hearty broth made with beef bone, cabbage, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, and rice or barley.

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

Why it works: Carrot and celery 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. Boil the beef bone in 3 quarts of water for 3 hours.

  2. Remove the meat from the broth.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the chopped cabbage, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, and rice or barley to the soup.

  2. Season with salt and pepper and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Serve as is or strain if preferred.

Prepare the meat

  1. Season the meat with salt and pepper, then brown it in a little of the broth until tender and serve after the soup.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Beef bone
Simmered for hours to release flavour and body into the broth.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour to the soup.
Onion
Builds savoury depth and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery flavour and firm texture.
Rice or barley
Thickens the broth slightly and adds a chewy texture as it cooks.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, rice, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, rice, pepper. 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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