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Soup

Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, veal, mutton bones, ham, carrots, turnips, onions, herbs, and water, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef, veal, mutton bones, ham, herbs, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 hours.

  3. Strain the soup, reserving the liquid.

Season and serve

  1. Season the strained meat and bones with salt and pepper.

  2. Serve the soup hot.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin during long simmering, adding body and a richer mouthfeel to the broth.
Mutton bones
Add savoury depth and body to the stock as their marrow and collagen break down.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky savour that seasons the broth from within.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the boil. Once the pot reaches a boil, reducing the heat to a gentle simmer keeps the broth clear. A hard boil emulsifies fats and proteins into it, making it cloudy and greasy.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, mutton, ham, carrot, onion, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, ham, carrot, onion, butter. 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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