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Vegetable Soup

A broth of assorted vegetables simmered in water, finished with salt and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Illustration of Vegetable SoupIllustration

Why it works: Parsnip and cauliflower work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 27 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat.

  2. Add the onion, green beans, carrot, green pepper, celery, tomato, parsley, parsnip, and cauliflower.

  3. Sauté the vegetables for a few minutes until they begin to soften.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in the water and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for one hour.

  3. Stir in the salt and milk before serving.

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.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsnip + cauliflowertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,096 recipes

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

  5. Celery + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the base flavor of the soup.
Parsnip
Adds natural sweetness and body to the broth as it simmers.
Milk
Adds richness and a mellow, creamy note to the finished soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, pepper, celery, tomato, parsley, parsnip):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Turnipbetter flavor fit
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, pepper, celery, tomato, parsley, parsnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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