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Soup

Vegetable Soup

A clear soup made with sautéed onions, carrots, celery, stock, water, lemon juice, pureed peas, salt, and white pepper.

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

  1. Sauté the onions, carrots, and celery in butter until browned, stirring to cook evenly.

  2. In a soup kettle, combine the sautéed vegetables, stock, and hot water.

  3. Boil gently for one hour.

  4. Fifteen minutes before serving, add lemon juice, pureed peas, salt, and white pepper.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Softened and browned in butter, they build a savory, sweet base for the broth.
Carrots
Release natural sugars as they cook, adding sweetness and body to the soup.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth and a fresh vegetal flavor to the broth.
Green peas
Pureed into the soup, they thicken it slightly and add color and mild sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the vegetables and stock.

The step that matters

Browning the sautéed vegetables. Cooking the onions, carrots, and celery until browned develops deeper flavor through the Maillard reaction and caramelization. Stirring keeps them from scorching unevenly, so the soup tastes rich rather than bitter or flat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, celery, butter, lemon, peas):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, celery, butter, lemon, peas. 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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