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Vegetable Soup

A soup made with turnip, onion, carrot, cabbage, celery, stock, pepper, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare

  1. Chop all the vegetables very finely.

  2. Parboil the cabbage and onions for 5 minutes, then drain carefully.

Cook the soup

  1. Combine all the vegetables in a pot and cover with 1 quart of water.

  2. Simmer until tender.

  3. Add the stock and seasoning, then allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.

  4. Serve without straining.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 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. Pepper + celerytop 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

Turnip
Adds body and a mild sweetness as it softens in the broth.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens and flavors the broth.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and color to the soup.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweet flavor as it becomes tender.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor and a crisp-tender vegetable texture.

The step that matters

Parboil the cabbage and onions for 5 minutes, then drain carefully.. Parboiling softens the cabbage and onions and mellows their sharp, sulfurous notes before they go into the pot. Draining well keeps excess water and bitterness from diluting the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, turnip, carrot, cabbage, celery, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, turnip, carrot, cabbage, celery, sugar. 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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