Skip to main content
Main

Vegetable Soup

A soup made from turnip, cabbage, carrot, celery, onion, milk, wheat, butter, and optional egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop or grind the turnip, cabbage, carrot, celery, and onion finely.

  2. Cover the vegetables with warm water and let them sit for 3 to 4 hours to soften.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the warm milk thickened with flaked wheat and butter.

  2. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites just before serving.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Rich milk
Provides the liquid base and richness for the soup.
Flaked wheat
Thickens the warm milk as its starch swells with heat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Egg whites
Whipped foam adds lightness and airiness to the soup.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the vegetable base.
Cabbage
Supplies bulk and a mild vegetable flavour once softened.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites just before serving. Beaten egg white foam is unstable and collapses as it sits or gets hot. Folding it in at the last moment keeps the soup light and airy rather than flat.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, celery, onion, milk, wheat, butter. 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

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipes