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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with onions, carrots, turnip, lettuce or cabbage, leeks, dripping or butter, water, broken bread, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

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 ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and chop all the vegetables finely.

  2. Wash and dry the vegetables.

Cook the soup

  1. Melt the dripping in a large saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the vegetables and cover the pan.

  3. Toss the contents until well mixed.

  4. Pour in the water and bring to a boil without a lid.

  5. Add pepper and salt.

  6. Skim the surface.

  7. Boil for 30 minutes, skimming as needed.

  8. Cover the soup and let it simmer for 1 hour or until the vegetables are thoroughly cooked.

Serve

  1. Place the broken bread in a hot soup tureen.

  2. Pour the boiling soup over the bread and cover the soup.

  3. Serve very hot.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Build the aromatic base and add sweetness as they soften in the fat.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Lettuces or cabbage
Add bulk and mild flavour, softening into the broth during cooking.
Dripping or butter
Carries flavour from the start and adds richness to the soup.
Broken bread
Soaks up the hot broth, giving the soup a thicker, more substantial texture.

The step that matters

Skim the surface during the boil. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the soup heats. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, so skim as needed throughout.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, lettuce, leek, butter, bread, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Endivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, lettuce, leek, butter, bread, pepper. 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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