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Winter Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with turnips, carrots, onions, celery, leeks, garlic, parsley, cloves, and spices, simmered in water.

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 base

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

  2. Add the turnips, carrots, and onions; sauté until light yellow, about 10 minutes.

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

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

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in the water and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 hours, skimming off any scum.

  3. Strain the soup and serve. Optionally, add croutons, vermicelli, Italian pasta, or rice.

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
Provide starchy body and mild sweetness as they soften into the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while building the soup's vegetable flavor.
Onions
Form the aromatic base, and their sugars brown gently during sautéing for depth.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness as the vegetables are softened in it.
Leeks
Contribute a mild, sweet onion flavor that enriches the broth.
Celery
Adds savory, slightly bitter aroma that rounds out the soup's flavor.

The step that matters

Skimming during the long simmer. Scum rising during simmering contains impurities that can cloud the broth and taint its flavor, so removing it keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

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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