Skip to main content
Main

Economical Soup

A hearty soup made from leftover bits and bones, carrots, sweet potato, herbs, cabbage, onion, corn, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Economical Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine all leftover bits and bones in a soup kettle.

  2. Add diced carrot, sliced sweet potato, sweet herbs, shredded cabbage, and minced onion.

  3. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Add green corn and fresh tomatoes.

  5. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Return the liquid to the kettle.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  2. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Carrot + sweet potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sweet potato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together153 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover bits and bones
Give the broth its meaty, savoury flavour as they simmer.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks down.
Sweet potato
Softens into the broth, adding body and a mild sweetness.
Fresh tomatoes
Contribute acidity and brightness that balance the rich, long-simmered broth.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours. A gentle, slow simmer extracts flavour from the bones and meat gradually and keeps the broth clear. A hard, rapid boil breaks up the ingredients and makes the liquid cloudy and greasy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, sweet potato, onion, corn, tomato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, sweet potato, onion, corn, tomato. 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.

You might also like

Sweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipes