Name: Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: 1 parsnip, chopped; 1 carrot, chopped; 1 turnip, chopped; ⅛ head of cabbage, chopped; 3 quarts water; 3 potatoes, chopped

Why it works: Parsnip and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the parsnip, carrot, turnip, and cabbage finely.

Make the soup

In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables with 3 quarts of water.
Simmer the mixture for 1.5 hours.
Add the chopped potatoes and continue to simmer until tender.

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.

Parsnip + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together590 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,097 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnip: Adds sweetness and body to the broth as it softens during simmering.
Carrot: Adds sweetness and colour while softening into the broth.
Potatoes: Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the soup and adding body.