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Winter Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with turnips, carrots, onions, celery, leeks, garlic, parsley, cloves, butter, and water, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Winter Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

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

  2. Add the turnips, carrots, and onions; fry until light yellow.

  3. Stir in the celery and leeks; fry for 6 minutes.

  4. Add garlic, parsley, cloves, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Cover with water and simmer for 3 hours, skimming off any scum.

Serve

  1. Strain the soup and serve.

  2. Add croutons, vermicelli, Italian pastes, or rice if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Give the soup its earthy, slightly sweet vegetable body as they soften during simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook down.
Onions
Build savory depth and sweetness when fried gently in butter before the water is added.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like flavour and soft texture to the broth.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and vegetables in the pot, adding richness and helping them soften and colour lightly.

The step that matters

Skimming off any scum during the 3-hour simmer. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the broth simmers. Skimming them off keeps the soup clear and free of bitter or off flavours, which would otherwise be stirred back in.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, onion, butter, celery, leek, garlic):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, onion, butter, celery, leek, garlic. 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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