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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup of carrots, onions, potatoes, cabbage, eggs, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped carrots, onions, potatoes, and cabbage.

  2. Add just enough water to cover the vegetables and stew until tender.

Finish the soup

  1. Once tender, add boiling water and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, rub a little flour into the butter, then stir in the eggs.

  3. Add the milk and mix thoroughly.

  4. Stir the mixture into the soup and boil for a few moments.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Carrot + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 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

Carrots
Provide sweetness, colour and body to the soup.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook, thickening the soup and adding body.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the liquid as they set when stirred in.
Milk
Adds creaminess and moisture, mellowing the soup's texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the soup. Eggs set when heated, so they can curdle into lumps if added to very hot liquid too fast. Stirring the mixture in gradually and keeping the boil gentle helps it blend smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, potato, butter, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, potato, butter, egg, milk. 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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