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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with onions, carrots, turnips, cabbage, tomatoes, herbs, butter, flour, and optional cream.

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

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 the soup

  1. Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Add the chopped onions, carrots, and turnips, and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Stir in the chopped cabbage, stewed tomatoes, and sweet herbs.

  4. Boil the soup for 20 minutes, then strain through a sieve, pressing the vegetables through.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and flour.

  2. Season the soup with salt, pepper, and sugar, then stir in the cream if using.

  3. Add the butter and flour mixture to the soup, let it boil briefly, and serve.

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.

  1. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Build the flavor base and body of the soup as they soften and release sweetness.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body as they soften during simmering.
Turnips
Contribute bulk and a mild, earthy flavor to the broth.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a soft, mellow texture after long simmering.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and savory depth, and body once stewed and pressed through.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style paste that thickens the soup and adds richness when stirred in.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour must be fully blended into the butter before it goes into the soup, and the soup should only boil briefly afterward. Lumps can form if it is added cold or unevenly, and prolonged boiling can make the thickened soup taste floury and dull.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, butter, flour, 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.

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