Name: Vegetable Soup
Ingredients: ¼ head cabbage; 3 large onions; 1 turnip; 3 large potatoes; 2 tablespoons cooked beans; 1 gallon stock; tomatoes (optional)

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the cabbage, onions, turnip, and potatoes.

Cook the soup

Boil all the vegetables and beans together until tender.
Drain the water from the vegetables.
Add 1 gallon of stock to the pot.
Stir in tomatoes 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.

Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together400 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together655 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: Their starch softens into the broth and gives the soup body and a tender texture.
Onions: They soften and turn sweet as they cook, building the soup's base flavor.
Cabbage: It softens as it simmers, adding texture and a mild, sweet vegetable flavor.
Cooked beans: They add substance and body, making the soup more filling and thicker.
Stock: It forms the main liquid and carries the savory flavor through the soup.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, turnip, potato, beans):

Leekfits better
Broccolifits better
Chivefits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, turnip, potato, beans. 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.