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Vegetable Broth

A clear broth made by simmering potatoes, carrot, turnip, onion, and herbs in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Vegetable Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Slice the potatoes, carrot, turnip, and onion.

  2. Boil the sliced vegetables in 1 quart of water for 1 hour, adding more water as needed to maintain the original quantity.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and add pot-herbs.

Finish and strain

  1. Strain the broth.

  2. For improved flavor, add a small quantity of mushroom ketchup if desired.

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. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + oniontop 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

Potatoes
Release starch and body into the water, giving the broth a fuller texture.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color to the broth as it simmers.
Turnip
Contributes a mild, earthy flavor to the simmering liquid.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens and releases its flavor into the water.

The step that matters

Maintaining the water level during the hour-long boil. Simmering for an hour concentrates the liquid, so topping up with water keeps the broth from reducing too far and becoming overly salty or intense once seasoned.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, mushroom, 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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