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Vegetable Soup

A simple soup of potatoes, onions, turnips, carrot, parsley, and water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

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 ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the potatoes into quarters.

  2. Slice the onions.

  3. Cut the turnips into quarters.

  4. Slice the carrot.

Cook

  1. Put all ingredients in a stew-pan with water and salt.

  2. Boil until reduced to 1 quart.

  3. About 15 minutes before done, add the chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Strain and serve with light bread or toast.

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

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

  2. Turnip + carrottop 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + carrottop 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

Potatoes
Break down while simmering to give the soup body and a thicker texture.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds as they cook, adding sweetness and savory depth.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up during long boiling.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color to the broth.

The step that matters

Boiling down to 1 quart. Boiling reduces the water and concentrates the flavors of the vegetables. Boiling too long or too hard can over-reduce the liquid and make the soup overly thick or salty, so watch the volume as it nears 1 quart.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, turnip, carrot, 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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