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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef shank, potatoes, sweet pepper, turnip, onions, cabbage, celery, parsley, tomatoes, butter beans, corn, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the beef shank in a large pot of water for two hours, adding water as needed to keep the meat covered.

  2. Remove the meat and skim the soup.

Add the vegetables and simmer

  1. Add the chopped potato, sweet pepper, turnip, onions, cabbage, celery, parsley, tomatoes, butter beans, corn, and rice to the pot.

  2. Cook slowly for one hour, seasoning to taste.

  3. If the soup becomes too thick, add more water.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 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

Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the soup as it cooks.
Butter beans
Add starch and body, making the soup heartier.
Beef shank
Releases collagen and flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Potato
Releases starch that softens the broth and adds body.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for one hour after adding the vegetables. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and lets the vegetables and rice cook evenly. A hard boil breaks up the vegetables and can make the rice gummy and the soup cloudy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, pepper, turnip, onion, celery, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper, turnip, onion, celery, parsley. 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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