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Soup

Cottage Soup

A hearty soup made with meat, dripping, onion, sugar, turnips, celery, leeks, rice, and water, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cottage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the meat, dripping, onion, and sugar, then stir over heat until lightly browned.

  2. Add the turnips, celery, and leeks, and stir for a few more minutes.

Simmer and serve

  1. Stir in the rice and water, then season with pepper and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 3.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

  3. When ready to serve, pour the soup into a soup-tureen.

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.

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 + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides savoury flavour and body as it browns and cooks into the broth.
Leeks
Add mild onion sweetness and soften into the soup during the long simmer.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the soup as it cooks.
Turnips
Contribute earthy sweetness and soften into the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the meat and onion. Browning creates Maillard reaction flavours that deepen the whole soup. Pale, under-browned meat leaves the broth flat, and it cannot be fixed later.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, sugar, turnip, celery, leek, rice, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sugar, turnip, celery, leek, rice, 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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