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Vegetable Soups

A hearty vegetable soup made by stewing seasonal vegetables with herbs, spices, and mushroom ketchup, then simmering and optionally adding browned onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Vegetable Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Stew assorted seasonal vegetables until reduced to a pulp.

  2. Add savoury herbs, chilis, shallots, garlic, mace, whole black pepper, coarse sea salt, mushroom ketchup, and curry powder.

  3. Simmer the mixture for several hours.

  4. Strain the pulp and store for a few days if desired.

Finish

  1. If browning is needed, fry the sliced onions in butter and add them to the soup.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Tarragon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Chervil + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Assorted seasonal vegetables
Break down into a pulp that gives the soup its body.
Garlic
Adds a pungent aroma that mellows during long simmering.
Shallots
Add mild, sweet onion-like flavour that builds the base of the soup.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth from its concentrated umami flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onions brown when fried.
Sliced onions
Browning in butter adds colour and sweet, toasted flavour.

The step that matters

Stew the vegetables until reduced to a pulp. Long, gentle cooking softens the vegetables' cell walls so they break down fully. Under-cooked vegetables stay in pieces and leave the soup thin and grainy once strained.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chervil, tarragon, marjoram, shallot, garlic, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, tarragon, marjoram, shallot, garlic, pepper, mushroom. 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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