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Soup

Winter Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with turnips, carrots, onions, celery, leeks, garlic, parsley, cloves, butter, and spices, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Winter Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the turnips, carrots, and onions; fry until light yellow.

  3. Stir in the celery and leeks; fry for 6 minutes.

  4. Add garlic, parsley, cloves, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Simmer and serve

  1. Cover with water and bring to a simmer.

  2. Skim off any scum that forms and simmer for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the soup and serve.

  4. Add croutons, vermicelli, pasta, or rice if desired.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fats the pot and carries the aromatics, adding richness and helping the vegetables soften and brown lightly.
Turnips
Provide body and a mild, slightly peppery flavor that deepens during the long simmer.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the broth as they soften.
Onions
Build savory depth as they fry and release sugars into the base.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like sweetness and silky texture to the soup.
Celery
Adds savory, herbal aroma and a subtle salty backbone to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum while simmering. Scum is coagulated proteins and impurities that rise to the surface. Removing it keeps the broth clear and free of bitter, off flavors during the long simmer.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, onion, butter, celery, leek, garlic. 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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