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Vegetable Soup

A simple soup of chopped vegetables simmered in water, finished with salt and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onion, French beans, ox-heart carrot, green pepper, celery, tomato, parsley, parsnip, and cauliflower.

Cook the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine all the chopped vegetables with the oil and water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Add salt and milk 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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  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

Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens in the oil.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the broth.
Parsnip
Adds natural sweetness and a thicker texture to the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the vegetable flavors.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, carrot, pepper, celery, tomato, parsley, parsnip):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, carrot, pepper, celery, tomato, parsley, parsnip. 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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