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Nutrient-Rich Vegetable Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Nutrient-Rich Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Collect leftover meat and bones.

  2. Place bones in a large pot with water and bring to a boil.

  3. Add chopped turnips, carrots, leeks, potatoes, lettuce leaves, and celery.

  4. Include the thick part of peas and grits or coarse oatmeal.

  5. Simmer until the vegetables are tender and the broth is flavorful.

  6. Add the leftover meat towards the end to warm it through.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, turnip, carrot, leek, potato, lettuce, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, turnip, carrot, leek, potato, lettuce, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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