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Soup

Winter Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup of 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) · 12 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 large pot, heat a little oil and sauté the turnips, carrots, and onions until light yellow.

  2. Add the celery and leeks, and stir-fry all ingredients for 6 minutes.

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

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

Strain and serve

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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
Adds earthy body and mild sweetness as they soften during simmering.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color to the broth as they cook down.
Onions
Build the savory base of the soup through slow softening and browning.
Leeks
Add a mild, sweet onion-like flavor that deepens during simmering.
Celery
Contributes savory, slightly bitter aroma and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming off scum during the 3-hour simmer. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the soup simmers. Skimming them keeps the broth clear and free of off flavors.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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