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Scotch Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef brisket, carrots, turnips, onions, parsnips, potatoes, celery, parsley, and rice or barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, boil the brisket of beef with salt and pepper for 1 hour.

  2. Add the finely chopped carrots, turnips, onions, parsnips, potatoes, celery, and parsley.

  3. Stir in 1-2 cups of rice or barley.

  4. Continue to cook until done, then skim the surface and serve.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 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

Brisket of beef
Provides the main meat and rich beefy flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Potatoes
Thicken the soup slightly as their starch releases during cooking.
Rice or barley
Adds body and absorbs liquid, thickening the soup as it cooks.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, turnip, parsnip, potato, celery. 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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