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An Economical Vegetable Soup

A simple vegetable soup made with lentils, onions, carrots, leeks, ghee, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,310 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

An Economical Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Heat the ghee or dripping in a pot over gentle heat.

  2. Add the dal, onion, carrot, and spring onions.

  3. Stir constantly for 5 minutes to color the vegetables.

  4. Pour in the cold water and bring to a quick boil.

  5. Cover the pot tightly.

  6. Simmer for 1 hour without rapid cooking.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the cornflour with the cold milk until smooth.

  2. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  3. Bring the soup to a quick boil for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Break stale bread into a bowl or tureen.

  5. Pour the soup over the bread to 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.

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 + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Dal
Breaks down during simmering to give the soup body and thickness.
Ghee or dripping
Fat for frying the vegetables, carrying flavor and aiding browning.
Cornflour
Starch that thickens the soup when it is brought to a boil.
Cow's milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the finished soup.
Stale bread
Soaks up the soup, giving the dish substance and a soft texture.

The step that matters

Stir the cornflour mixture in and boil it briefly. Cornflour must be mixed smooth in cold milk first, then heated, so starch granules swell evenly and thicken without lumps.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, ghee, milk, bread, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, ghee, milk, bread, 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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