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Turnip Soup

A soup made from turnip, onion, potato, butter, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Turnip Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Turnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, peel, and chop the turnip, onion, and potato.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the vegetables in the water until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve back into the saucepan.

  3. Add butter and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Bring to a boil 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnip
Provides the main body and mild, slightly peppery flavour of the soup.
Potato
Its starch thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, creamy texture when sieved.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour and mouthfeel of the soup.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the fully cooked vegetables through a sieve breaks down their cell walls and fibres, producing a smooth texture. Vegetables that are not tender enough will leave the soup grainy.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, 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.

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