Name: Vegetable Soup Without Meat
Ingredients: 3 turnips, scraped and sliced; 3 carrots, scraped and sliced; 3 onions, peeled; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 bunch celery, cut into pieces; 3 leeks, cut into pieces; 1 clove garlic, minced; 2 stalks parsley, chopped; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; A little grated nutmeg; 3 quarts water; Vermicelli, Italian paste, or rice (to add at the end)

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

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.

Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,046 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips: Give the soup its body and mild, sweet earthiness as they soften.
Carrots: Add natural sweetness and color to the broth as they cook down.
Onions: Build savory depth through slow frying and add a sweet, aromatic base.
Butter: Carries flavor and adds richness when used to start the vegetables.
Celery: Contributes savory, aromatic flavor that deepens during simmering.
Leeks: Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Frying the turnips, carrots, and onions until light yellow. Frying gently softens the vegetables and builds flavor through light browning, which gives the soup more depth. Going too dark can make the flavor bitter, so keep the color light.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, onion, butter, celery, leek, garlic):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, onion, butter, celery, leek, garlic. 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.

Vegetable Soup Without Meat