Skip to main content
Main

Vegetable Soup

A soup made from meat stock, rice, onions, potatoes, salt, cayenne pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Vegetable 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 ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the meat until tender to make stock.

  2. Add rice to the stock and boil for 2 hours.

Add the vegetables

  1. Slice the onions and potatoes thinly, then add them to the pot.

  2. Boil again for 20 minutes.

Season and finish

  1. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, and sugar.

  2. Strain if desired.

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. Rice + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Meat
Simmering it releases flavor and gelatin into the water, forming the body of the stock.
Rice
Its starch thickens the broth gradually as the grains soften during a long simmer.
Onions
Cooking softens their sharpness and adds sweet, savory aroma to the broth.
Potatoes
Their starch softens and thickens the broth, giving it a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Add rice to the stock and boil for 2 hours.. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and breaking down during a long simmer, so the soup thickens over time. Watch the consistency and add liquid if it becomes too thick.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, potato, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, potato, pepper, sugar. 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.

More vegetable soup recipes

Spring 46Beef 45Winter 31French 11Lentil 9Clear 8 See all 425 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes