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Vegetable Soup

A clear soup made with carrots, turnip, onion, leek, celery, parsley, butter, flour, water, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

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 ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the vegetables and cut them into strips about the size of a short and thick match.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and fry the vegetables very slowly until the butter is absorbed.

  2. Add the boiling water, half of the milk, salt, and pepper, and simmer gently until the vegetables are tender (5 to 10 minutes).

  3. Mix the flour and the remaining milk smoothly together, pour the mixture into the saucepan, stir, and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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

Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries flavour as they fry gently.
Flour
Thickens the milk and liquid into a smoother, heavier soup body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup and helps it thicken with the flour.
Carrots
Provide sweetness and body as they soften in the soup.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like flavour and softness to the vegetable base.
Turnip
Adds a slightly sharp, earthy flavour and firm texture that softens when simmered.

The step that matters

Frying the vegetables very slowly in the butter. Slow frying softens the vegetables and draws out their sweetness without browning them harshly. Cooking too fast can scorch the butter and give a bitter taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, butter, flour. 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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