Name: Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart stock; ½ cup rice; 1 cup tomatoes; 4 pods okra; ½ cup Irish potatoes, diced; 1 cup cabbage, chopped; ½ cup celery, chopped; 1 carrot, chopped; 1 onion, chopped

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

Prepare

Chop all vegetables together.

Make the soup

Heat the stock in a pot.
Add the chopped vegetables to the heated stock.
Cook until the vegetables are well done.
If you don't have stock, cook one soup bone until tender and add water.

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.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together327 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Okra + oniontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together715 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 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

Stock: Forms the liquid base that carries heat and flavor through the soup.
Rice: Releases starch as it simmers, slightly thickening the broth and adding body.
Irish potatoes: Their starch softens during cooking, adding body to the broth and a tender texture.
Onion: Builds a savory aromatic base, becoming mildly sweet as it cooks.
Tomatoes: Add acidity and a rounded flavor that brightens the broth.
Okra: Releases mucilage during cooking, helping to thicken the soup.

Swap the cabbage

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

Turnipfits better
Capsicumfits better
Parsnipfits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato, okra, potato, celery, carrot, onion. 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.