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Puree of Vegetable Soup

A creamy vegetable soup made by pureeing carrots, turnips, onions, ham, and potatoes, then simmering with stock, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Puree of Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Lightly fry the diced carrots, turnips, onions, and ham or bacon in a pot.

  2. Mix the flour with a little water to form a smooth paste.

  3. Add the flour paste to the pot.

  4. Pour in the stock or broth.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the parsley and potatoes.

  2. Add the milk.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Cook for 20 minutes.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  6. Strain the soup through a fine sieve, discarding the parsley and ham.

  7. Return the strained soup to the pot.

  8. Bring to a boil again.

  9. Skim off any foam.

  10. Serve hot with toasted bread.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms a smooth paste that thickens the stock and gives the puree body.
Potatoes
Break down during cooking to add starch, creaminess and body to the puree.
Milk
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the finished soup.
Carrots
Add sweetness, colour and body as they soften and blend into the puree.
Turnips
Contribute earthy flavour and body as they soften into the puree.
Onion
Builds savoury depth and aroma when lightly fried at the start.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste to the pot. Flour lumps form if it is added dry or unmixed, so mixing it smoothly with water first lets it disperse evenly. Simmering the soup afterwards lets the starch fully cook, which removes the raw floury taste and thickens the liquid evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, ham, flour, parsley, potato, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, ham, flour, parsley, potato, milk. 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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