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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef bone or ribs, potatoes, cabbage, parsnip, carrots, onions, rutabaga, bay leaf, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Parsnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the meat in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil.

Cook the vegetables

  1. After 1.5 hours, add the chopped cabbage, onion, rutabaga, and potatoes.

  2. In a separate pot, boil the parsnip and carrots for 30 minutes, then drain and chop finely.

  3. Add the chopped parsnip and carrots to the meat and vegetables.

  4. Cook until all vegetables are tender, season, and 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. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

  2. Parsnip + rutabagatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together74 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

Soup bone or beef ribs
Releases flavour and body into the broth as it simmers.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the soup and adding body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and hold their shape well during long simmering.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the broth as they soften.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it cooks down in the broth.

Swap the rutabaga

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Rutabagathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, cabbage, parsnip, carrot, onion, 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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