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Spring Vegetable Soup

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

Spring Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the meat from the bones of the shin of beef and knuckle of veal.

  2. Remove all fat from the meat and set it aside.

  3. Break the bones in half and extract the marrow, setting it aside.

  4. Place the meat and bones in a large stockpot or stewpan.

  5. Add 5 pints of cold water and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  6. Cover the pot and bring it to a boil quickly.

  7. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  8. Reduce the heat and let it simmer gently for 5 hours.

  9. Scrape and slice the young carrots.

  10. Peel and slice the young turnip.

  11. Wash the leek and celery, then cut them into squares.

  12. Wash the cauliflower and set it aside.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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 (beef, veal, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, cauliflower):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

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

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