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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup of beef or veal, onions, potatoes, cabbage, butter, lard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the beef or veal slowly until tender.

  2. Add the sliced onions, diced potatoes, and cabbage to the boiling broth.

  3. Stir in the butter and lard, and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Boil for one hour.

  5. Cut the beef into small pieces before boiling.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cooked meat in a baking pan.

  2. Add butter and pepper to the pan.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) for five minutes.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal
Provides the main meaty flavor and chewy, substantial texture when cooked tender.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the broth.
Potatoes
Release starch that softens the vegetables and slightly thickens the broth.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it cooks down in the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the soup.
Lard
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the broth a rounder richness.

The step that matters

Boil the beef slowly until tender. Gentle simmering lets the connective tissue in the meat break down slowly, leaving it tender. A hard, rapid boil tightens and toughens the muscle fibers and can leave the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, potato, butter, pepper. 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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