Name: Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart boiled beans, strained; 3 potatoes, sliced; 1 onion, chopped; Fresh celery or 1 teaspoon celery salt; A little rice; Any other desired vegetables; Soup stock or ¼ cup butter; Salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil sliced potatoes, onion, celery (or celery salt), rice, and any other vegetables in a pot until tender.
If a smooth soup is preferred, strain the vegetables through a colander.
Add the strained beans to the pot.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in soup stock or butter 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.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,017 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,159 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled beans: Thicken the soup and add body and earthy flavor as they are strained into the pot.
Potatoes: Soften into the broth and help thicken it as they cook until tender.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, potato, celery, rice, butter, pepper):

Carrotfits better
Tomatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, potato, celery, rice, butter, pepper. 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.