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Vegetable Soup

A hearty vegetable soup made with onions, carrots, turnips, cabbage, tomatoes, herbs, butter, flour, and optional sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Add the chopped onions, carrots, and turnips.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Stir in the chopped cabbage and stewed tomatoes, along with the sweet herbs.

  5. Let the soup boil for 20 minutes.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the soup through a sieve, rubbing the vegetables through.

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and flour.

  3. Season the soup with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  4. Stir in the sweet cream if using.

  5. Add the butter and flour mixture.

  6. Let it boil briefly.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Build the soup's flavour base and add sweetness as they cook down.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Contribute body and a mild, earthy flavour to the soup.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and texture to the soup as it simmers.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, thickening the broth when rubbed through.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style paste that thickens the soup when stirred in and boiled briefly.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour needs to boil briefly after it is stirred in, otherwise it stays starchy and can leave the soup tasting raw and floury instead of smoothly thickened.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, butter, flour, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, butter, flour, 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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