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Simple Soup

A hearty vegetable soup made with turnips, carrots, onions, celery, lettuce, butter, herbs, stock, and peas.

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

Simple Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the turnips, carrots, onions, celery, and lettuce into very small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan with a tightly fitting lid, combine the chopped vegetables and melted butter.

  2. Add sweet herbs if desired, cover, and steam over gentle heat for 20 minutes.

  3. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

  4. Add the green peas and simmer gently for 3 hours.

  5. Pass the mixture through a sieve, return to the pot, and bring to a boil again.

  6. Season with pepper and salt, then 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted fat that coats the vegetables and carries flavour while they steam gently.
Lettuce
Adds moisture and a mild, sweet vegetable body as it breaks down during cooking.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the soup as they soften.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery bitterness and body as they cook down.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a smooth, thickening body when simmered and sieved.

The step that matters

Skimming the stock as it boils. Scum rising from the stock contains impurities and proteins that can cloud the broth and taint its flavour if left in, so it should be removed as it forms.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, onion, celery, lettuce, butter, pepper):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, onion, celery, lettuce, butter, 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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