Name: Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: 1 soup bone; 1 large potato, chopped; 1 onion, chopped; 1 stalk celery, chopped; 1 cup cabbage, chopped; 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; 1 hard boiled egg, chopped

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

Boil the soup bone in water for 3 hours to make broth.

Cook the soup

Add the chopped potato, onion, celery, cabbage, and parsley to the broth.
Boil for 1 hour.
Season with salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

Just before serving, stir in the chopped hard boiled egg.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup bone: Simmers into the broth that gives the soup its base flavor.
Potato: Softens during boiling and thickens the soup slightly as its starch releases.
Cabbage: Becomes tender in the broth and adds mild sweetness and bulk.
Hard boiled egg: Adds soft, mild protein pieces that contrast with the cooked vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, cabbage, parsley, pepper, egg):

Carrotfits better
Chivefits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, cabbage, parsley, pepper, egg. 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.