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Cheap Soup

A hearty soup made with dripping, meat, onions, turnips, leeks, celery, rice or barley, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cheap Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the base

  1. In a large saucepan, heat the dripping over medium heat.

  2. Add the meat, sliced onions, and brown sugar; stir until lightly browned.

  3. Add the turnips, celery, and leeks; stir for 10 minutes.

Simmer the soup

  1. Pour in 1 quart of cold water and add the rice; heat until warm.

  2. Add 5 quarts of hot water, stir, and simmer for 3 hours.

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. Leek + celerytop 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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Browned pieces add savoury depth and rich flavour to the broth as they cook.
Onions
Sliced onions soften and sweeten as they cook, adding body and flavour to the soup.
Rice or pearl barley
Starch thickens the broth and gives the soup a heartier, more substantial texture.
Turnips
Diced turnips soften during the long simmer and add mild sweetness and bulk.

The step that matters

Browning the meat and onions with brown sugar. Browning through the Maillard reaction and caramelising the sugar builds the deep, savoury colour and flavour of the broth. Stirring only until lightly browned avoids scorching, which would make the soup taste bitter.

Swap the onion

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

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

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