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Vegetable Soup

A simple vegetable soup made with mixed vegetables, broth, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Heat olive oil in a pot over medium heat.

  2. Add chopped onion and minced garlic; sauté until softened.

  3. Add mixed vegetables and sauté for 5 minutes.

  4. Pour in vegetable broth and bring to a boil.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

  6. Season with salt and pepper 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Mixed vegetables
Form the body of the soup and add flavour and texture as they cook.
Onion
Softens while sautéing, adding sweetness and a savoury base.
Garlic
Adds aroma that develops as it cooks gently in the oil.
Vegetable broth
Provides the liquid that cooks and carries the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Sauté the onion and garlic until softened. Cooking them gently in oil until soft, rather than browning them hard, lets their sweetness come through and prevents a bitter, harsh flavour in the finished soup.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, potato, onion, garlic, pepper, olive):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, potato, onion, garlic, pepper, olive. 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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