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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with marrow bone, lean meat, vegetables, corn, barley, and simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the stock

  1. Wash the marrow bone and lean meat well.

  2. Cover with cold water and simmer for a whole day, adding water as it boils away.

  3. Let the stock stand overnight and skim off some of the fat.

Make the soup

  1. Put the stock on the stove and add the chopped onion, carrot, potatoes, turnip, celery, and cabbage.

  2. Boil for three hours.

  3. Soak the corn and barley in cold water.

  4. Add the soaked barley and corn to the soup half an hour before serving, stirring often.

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

Marrow bone
Releases flavor and gelatin into the stock, giving the soup body and richness.
Lean meat
Flavors the stock as it simmers and can be served as part of the soup.
Barley
Swells as it cooks, thickening the soup and adding a chewy texture.
Potatoes
Soften during long simmering, adding starch that gives body to the broth.
Corn
Adds sweetness and a tender bite to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim the fat after standing overnight. Fat that rises and sets on cold stock can make the soup greasy. Removing it while the stock is cold leaves a cleaner, lighter broth.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, carrot, potato, turnip, celery, corn):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, carrot, potato, turnip, celery, corn. 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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