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Vegetable Soup

A cucumber and lettuce soup with butter, peas, and herbs, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and slice the cucumbers, cos lettuce, mint, onions, and parsley.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan combine the vegetables and butter, and stew over gentle heat for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour in 2 quarts of boiling water and stew for 2 hours.

  3. Mix a little flour with a teacup of water, boil it with the soup for 15-20 minutes, and serve.

Serve

  1. Optionally, add a roll or fried bread when serving.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the vegetables a smooth, silky body.
Flour
Mixed with water and boiled into the soup, it thickens the liquid to a lighter body.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, tender texture to the soup.
Cucumbers
Contribute a cool, watery freshness and mild flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Stewing the vegetables gently with butter. Gentle heat softens the vegetables in their own juices and fat without browning or scorching them, so the soup stays mild and smooth. Too much heat can stick and darken the batch.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, lettuce, mint, pepper, peas, parsley, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, lettuce, mint, pepper, peas, parsley, 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.

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