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Soup

Vegetable Soup

A soup made with butter, vegetable marrow, onions, cucumbers, apples or tomatoes, curry powder, salt, and water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Onion and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the vegetable marrow, onions, and cucumbers. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes until softened.

  3. Stir in the apples or tomatoes, curry powder, and salt.

  4. Pour in the water, broth, or stock. Simmer for 20 to 32 minutes.

  5. Serve the soup extremely hot, skimming off any butter that appears on the surface.

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. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cucumber + appletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrow
Forms the bulk of the soup and softens into a tender, mild body.
Onions
Build sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the butter.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the soup.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel.
Apples or tomatoes
Add acidity and fruitiness that balance the mild vegetables and curry.

The step that matters

Skimming the butter at the end. Butter that rises to the surface can make the soup greasy on the palate. Skimming before serving keeps the texture clean, and serving very hot keeps the soup savoury and fresh.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, cucumber):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, cucumber. 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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