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Turkish Soup

A beef gravy soup with root vegetables, peas, rice, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Turkish Soup

Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turkish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the gravy, carrots, turnips, potatoes, peas, parsnips, and salt.

  2. Stew the mixture until tender, then strain to remove fat.

  3. Return the strained soup to the pot and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the rice and cook until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the cream.

  2. Stir the egg mixture into the soup before serving.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Potato + parsniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together353 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks and softens, adding body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add body and richness when stirred in.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the soup's flavor and texture.
Potatoes
Break down during stewing, giving the soup body and thickness.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the soup. Egg yolks can curdle if they meet a very hot liquid directly. Whisking a little hot soup into the yolk and cream mixture first gently raises its temperature, helping it blend smoothly without scrambling.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, potato, parsnip, rice, cream):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, potato, parsnip, rice, cream. 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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