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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made from yellow peas or lentils, carrots, turnips, spinach, and water, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil a quantity of yellow peas, haricots, or lentils in water until tender.

  2. Press the peas through a sieve with the cooking water using a wooden spoon.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut carrots, turnips, and spinach into fine strips.

  2. Blanch the sliced vegetables in boiling water for a few minutes.

  3. Remove the blanched vegetables with a strainer.

Combine and simmer

  1. Mix the vegetables with the peas.

  2. Boil the mixture gradually for at least two hours, stirring frequently.

  3. Add a little coarse sea salt 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together320 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

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

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

  5. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 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

Yellow peas, haricots, or lentils
Cooked and pressed through a sieve, they thicken the soup and give it body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color as they soften during the long simmer.
Turnips
Add mild earthy flavor and a tender texture after simmering.
Spinach
Adds color and a soft, leafy texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmering gradually for at least two hours. Long, gentle boiling with frequent stirring lets the vegetables break down and the pulse purée blend into a smooth, thickened soup. Stirring prevents sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, spinach):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, spinach. 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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