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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef bone, water, carrots, onions, cabbage, potatoes, and rice, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef soup bone and boiling water.

  2. Boil for at least 4 hours.

Add the vegetables

  1. One hour before the soup is done, add the chopped carrot, onions, cabbage, potatoes, and rice.

  2. Do not add salt until the meat is tender.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Beef soup bone
Releases meaty flavor and gelatin into the broth during long simmering.
Potatoes
Soften and thicken the broth slightly as their starch releases during cooking.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and adds body as it cooks in the soup.

The step that matters

Do not add salt until the meat is tender. Salt drawn in early can toughen meat fibers as they cook, and the broth reduces during long simmering, so seasoning too early can leave the soup over-salted. Waiting lets you season the finished broth accurately.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, potato, rice. 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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