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 Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and cook the vegetables
Scrape and chop the carrots, onion, cabbage, and turnips into small pieces.
In a large saucepan, combine the chopped vegetables with a little butter and enough water to cover them.
Cook for 30 minutes.
Finish the soup
Finely chop the potatoes and add them to the saucepan.
Remove any meat from the soup kettle and skim off the grease.
Add the cooked vegetables to the soup kettle and let cook for another 30 minutes.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together897 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 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
- Carrots
- Adds sweetness and body as they soften during cooking.
- Onion
- Adds aromatic flavour as it softens in the broth.
- Cabbage
- Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it cooks.
- Turnips
- Hold their shape and add an earthy, slightly sharp flavour.
- Potatoes
- Release starch as they cook, lightly thickening the broth.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the soup.
The step that matters
Finely chop the potatoes before adding them. Small pieces cook through within the remaining simmering time, while larger chunks can stay firm in the centre. Potatoes added later also need to be cooked alongside the vegetables already in the pot.
Swap the cabbage
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, turnip, potato, butter):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Chivefits better
- Cabbagethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, turnip, potato, butter. 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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