Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓
Quick Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil onion, turnip, and carrot in 3 pints of water for 20 minutes.
Place chopped beef in a tin pail and set it in cold water.
Slowly bring the water to a boil, then pour it over the cold meat.
Cover and boil for 30 minutes in the hot water.
Make the soup
Transfer the soup to a saucepan.
Season with pepper and salt.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
Strain and serve
Strain the soup.
Press the meat to extract flavor.
Pour the strained soup into a tureen.
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.
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Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Raw lean beef
- Provides the main meaty flavor and body of the broth as it cooks.
- Onion
- Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
- Turnip
- Contributes mild sweetness and body to the broth.
- Carrot
- Adds gentle sweetness and color to the broth.
- Tomato ketchup
- Adds a little acidity and sweetness to round out the broth.
The step that matters
Slowly bringing the water to a boil over the cold meat. Heating gradually lets the meat warm evenly and release more flavorful juices and compounds into the broth. A sudden jolt of heat tightens the muscle fibers and traps much of the flavor inside the meat.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, turnip, carrot, pepper, ketchup):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, turnip, carrot, pepper, ketchup. 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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