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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef shin, vegetables, barley, rice, corn, beans, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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

Make the broth

  1. Cover the shin of beef or veal with cold water and bring to a boil slowly.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the diced potatoes, turnip, carrot, celery, chopped cabbage, barley, rice, corn, onion, tomatoes, string beans, and soup beans.

  2. Cook the barley, rice, and soup beans separately until soft, then add them to the soup when it's almost finished.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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

Shin of beef or veal
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Barley
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a chewy texture.
Rice
Adds body and soaks up some broth, thickening the soup as it cooks.
Soup beans
Add starch and a creamy texture as they soften.

The step that matters

Cooking the barley, rice, and soup beans separately. Grains and dried beans need long, gentle cooking to soften fully. Adding them raw or undercooked to the soup near the end leaves them firm, while cooking them separately lets you control their texture before they join the broth.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, turnip, carrot, celery, barley, rice):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, turnip, carrot, celery, barley, rice. 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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