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Clear Vegetable Soup

A clear soup made with carrot, turnip, button onions, butter, powdered sugar, and clear broth, seasoned with sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Clear Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the carrot and turnip, then cut them into small square pieces about the size of dice.

  2. Peel the button onions.

  3. Wash all vegetables in cold water. Drain the vegetables.

Glaze and simmer

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. Add the vegetables and powdered sugar. Cook over high heat for about 10 minutes, tossing occasionally until the vegetables are glazed but not browned.

  3. Pour the clear broth over the vegetables and bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat to simmer and cook for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are tender, skimming off any butter that rises to the surface.

  5. Taste and season with coarse sea salt as needed.

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.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the heat and gives the vegetables a rich flavour as they glaze.
Powdered sugar
Helps the vegetables caramelise lightly on the surface, adding sweetness.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the soup as it softens.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery flavour and firm texture to the soup.
Button onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness as they cook down in the broth.

The step that matters

Glazing over high heat without browning. Sugar darkens quickly once it gets hot, so the vegetables can scorch or turn bitter if the heat is too high or they are left unattended. Tossing keeps the sugar and butter coating evenly without burning.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, butter, 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.

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