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Vegetable Soup

A hearty vegetable soup made with beef stock, celery, onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, parsley, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the celery.

  2. Chop the onion.

  3. Dice the carrot.

  4. Dice the turnip.

  5. Chop the cabbage.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the sliced celery, chopped onion, diced carrot, diced turnip, chopped cabbage, and parsley with the rich beef stock in a pot.

  2. Add sugar.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Thicken the soup slightly if desired.

  5. Bring to a simmer.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

Carrot
Adds sweetness and body as it softens during simmering.
Turnip
Contributes a mild, slightly peppery flavor and firm texture to the soup.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a subtle sweetness as it cooks down in the broth.
Onion
Builds savory depth and aroma as it softens in the stock.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, onion, carrot, turnip, parsley, sugar. 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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