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Vegetable Marrow Soup

A soup made with marrow, tomatoes, onion, milk, rice, butter, and water, seasoned to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vegetable Marrow Soup

Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Chop the onion and sauté it in the butter until slightly softened.

  2. Add the water, milk, and washed, soaked, and drained rice.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the chopped vegetables.

  5. Cook slowly until all are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup.

  2. Reheat the soup and serve.

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. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Marrow
Forms the bulk of the soup and gives it its main body and mild flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a bright red colour to the soup.
Onion
Adds savoury depth as it softens gently in the butter.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the liquid.
Rice
Thickens the soup as its starch releases during simmering.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and adds richness to the start of the soup.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until all are tender. Milk can scorch and stick to the base of the pan over high heat. Gentle, slow cooking keeps the milk smooth and lets the vegetables and rice soften evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, milk, rice, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, milk, rice, 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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