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Vegetable Soup

A simple soup made with vegetable marrow, tomatoes, onion, rice, butter, water, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the vegetable marrow and tomatoes into small pieces, and slice the onion finely.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a pot and fry the onion until soft but not browned.

  2. Add the water and washed rice to the pot, and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the vegetable marrow and tomatoes, season with pepper and salt, and cook gently until the vegetables are tender.

  4. Pass the soup through a sieve, reheat, 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.

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. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks and gives it a fuller body.
Vegetable marrow
Forms the bulk of the soup and softens into a smooth texture.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, giving the soup a fresher flavour.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury base when softened in butter.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and adds richness.

The step that matters

Frying the onion until soft but not browned. Gentle cooking softens the onion and draws out its sweetness without browning, which would add bitter, roasted notes that do not suit a clear, delicate soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, rice, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, rice, butter, pepper. 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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