Skip to main content
Soup

Old-fashioned Vegetable Soup

A hearty vegetable soup with beef, veal, and mutton simmered with carrots, potatoes, onions, turnip, cabbage, greens, tomatoes, and barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Old-fashioned Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef, veal, and mutton in a large soup kettle and cover with water. Do not add salt.

  2. Bring to a simmer and let it cook all day.

  3. In the evening, remove from heat and cool overnight.

Finish the soup

  1. In the morning, add the carrots, potatoes, onion, turnip, cabbage, soup greens, tomatoes, barley, salt, pepper, and brown sugar.

  2. Cook for 2 to 3 hours until the vegetables are tender.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Beef shin
Long simmering breaks down collagen, giving the broth body and rich flavor.
Veal knuckle
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin, adding body and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.
Mutton
Adds deep meaty flavor to the broth during the long simmer.
Barley
Absorbs liquid as it cooks, thickening the soup and adding chewy texture.
Potatoes
Starch softens during cooking, helping thicken the broth and giving body to the soup.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that balance the rich meats and vegetables.

The step that matters

Cooling overnight before adding vegetables. Chilling lets fat solidify on the surface so it can be removed, and the broth's gelatin sets, producing a cleaner, less greasy soup once reheated.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, mutton, meat, carrot, potato, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, meat, carrot, potato, onion. 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesCream of Potato SoupCream of Potato Soup38 recipesMeatless Green Pea SoupMeatless Green Pea Soup22 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque11 recipes