Skip to main content
Main

Vegetable Soup

A beef broth with chopped vegetables simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

Prepare the stock

  1. Wipe the meat and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Place the meat and salt in cold water and let it stand for 3½ hours.

  3. Simmer for 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the finely chopped vegetables and seasoning, then cook for 1 hour longer.

  2. Strain the soup and cool it.

  3. When ready to use, remove the layer of fat, bring the stock to a boil, and add more salt if necessary.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Shin of beef
Provides meat and bone flavour and body to the stock as it simmers.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the finished soup.
Tomato
Adds acidity and savoury depth to the broth.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour.

The step that matters

Removing the layer of fat. Fat sets on top of the cooled stock and makes it greasy if left in. Skimming it off cold, before reheating, gives a cleaner-tasting broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, carrot, pepper, turnip, sugar, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, carrot, pepper, turnip, sugar, parsley. 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.

More vegetable soup recipes

Spring 46Beef 45Winter 31French 11Lentil 9Clear 8 See all 425 →

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipes