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Soup

Turnip Soup

A soup made with butter, stock, turnips, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Turnip Soup

Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add the stock, turnips, and onions; simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Stir in 2 quarts of good stock and bring to a gentle boil for 1 hour.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and transfer to a small soup pot.

  5. Keep the soup hot by the side of the stove.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + turniptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Provide the main body and flavour of the soup as they soften and break down.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they cook slowly in the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives a smooth mouthfeel.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that cooks the vegetables and sets the soup's overall flavour.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down their fibres and produces a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup grainy or stringy.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion. 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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