Skip to main content
Main

Turnip Soup

A simple soup made with butter, stock, turnips, and onions, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Turnip Soup

Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Start the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the stock, turnips, and onions.

  3. Cook over low heat for 1 hour.

Finish the soup

  1. Add 2 quarts of good stock and let it boil gently for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the soup to the stewpan to keep warm, but do not let it boil.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + turniptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the soup.
Stock
Provides the liquid base that gives the soup its body and moisture.
Turnips
Form the bulk of the soup and soften into a smooth texture as they cook.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma as they cook slowly over low heat.

The step that matters

Keep the strained soup below a boil. Once strained, the soup is reheated gently to keep warm. Boiling can scorch the base of the pan and dull the flavour, so low heat keeps it smooth and fresh-tasting.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion. 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 turnip soup recipes

Carrot 7 See all 93 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes