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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup of potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, and bread, seasoned with salt, pepper, and Harvey’s sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the vegetables and chop them into small pieces.

  2. In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables with 6 quarts of water. Add the salt, black pepper, and Harvey's sauce.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

  2. Add the slice of bread to the pot and cook for a few more minutes.

  3. 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.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + carrottop 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

Potatoes
Break down while simmering to give the soup body and a thicker texture.
Turnips
Add mild, slightly peppery flavor and firm body that holds up during simmering.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Onions
Build savory depth as they soften and release their sugars into the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the broth.
Bread
Soaks up broth and adds body, thickening the soup slightly.

The step that matters

Simmering until the vegetables are tender. Simmering too briefly leaves starchy vegetables firm and the broth thin, while overcooking can make them mushy. Cooking gently after the initial boil keeps the pieces intact while softening them fully.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, turnip, carrot, mushroom, celery, bread, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, turnip, carrot, mushroom, celery, bread, 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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