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Clear Vegetable Soup

A clear broth with diced carrot, turnip, and button onions, simmered with butter and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Clear Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the carrot and turnip, then cut them into small square pieces about the size of dice.

  2. Peel the button onions and wash all the vegetables in cold water, then drain them.

Glaze the vegetables

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over high heat and add the vegetables and powdered sugar.

  2. Cook for about 10 minutes, tossing occasionally, until the vegetables are covered with a shiny glaze without browning them.

Simmer and season

  1. Pour the clear broth over the glazed vegetables and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce the heat and let it simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes, skimming off any butter that rises to the surface.

  3. Taste and adjust seasoning with coarse sea salt as needed.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and gives the vegetables a shiny glaze as they cook.
Powdered sugar
Helps the vegetables caramelize lightly into a glaze, adding gentle sweetness.
Carrot
Provides sweetness and color, and becomes tender during the simmer.
Turnip
Adds mild, slightly peppery flavor and body to the broth as it softens.
Button onions
Contribute savory depth and sweetness as they soften in the broth.

The step that matters

Glazing without browning. Cooking over high heat in butter with sugar can quickly scorch the sugar and vegetables. Keeping the heat controlled gives a glossy coating without bitter, brown flavors that would cloud the clear broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, butter, sugar):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, butter, sugar. 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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