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Soup

Vegetable Soup

A soup made by simmering beef, veal, mutton bones and ham into stock, then adding sautéed carrots, turnips and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

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 ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef, veal, mutton bones, ham, herbs, and water.

  2. Cook slowly for 5 hours.

  3. Strain the soup, reserving 5 quarts of liquid.

  4. Season the meat and bones.

  5. Return the meat and bones to the stock-pot with 3 quarts of the strained liquid.

Make the vegetables

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter.

  2. Sauté the sliced carrots, turnips, and onions until lightly browned.

  3. Add 1 pint of the skimmed stock to the vegetables and stew until tender.

  4. Stir the flour mixed with a little water into the vegetables.

  5. Add this mixture to the soup kettle with the cooled stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with sugar, cayenne pepper, and salt, and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Rub the soup through a colander and then a soup sieve.

  3. Heat almost to boiling, and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the stock its meaty flavour and body as it cooks slowly.
Veal knuckle
Releases gelatine into the stock, adding body and a rich mouthfeel.
Mutton bones
Add collagen and savoury depth to the stock during the long slow cook.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour, and soften to thicken the soup when stewed.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is stirred into the vegetables and liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the vegetables brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture into the vegetables. Flour must be mixed smoothly with water first and stirred in evenly; otherwise it forms lumps that won't dissolve and thicken the soup properly.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, ham, carrot, onion, butter. 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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