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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, bread, salt, pepper, and Harvey’s sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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. Peel and chop the vegetables.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables with 6 quarts of water.

  2. Add the salt, pepper, and Harvey's sauce.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

  4. Add the slice of bread to the pot and cook for a few more minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 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
Break down slightly as they cook, giving the soup body and thickness.
Turnips
Add firm, slightly sharp body that softens during simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma to the broth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma and savoury background flavour.
Bread
Thickens the broth slightly as it softens in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering until the vegetables are tender. Simmering gently, rather than boiling hard, lets the vegetables soften evenly and keeps the broth clear. Stopping too early leaves firm, uneven pieces, while overcooking turns them mushy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, turnip, carrot, mushroom, celery, bread, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, turnip, carrot, mushroom, celery, bread, pepper. 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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