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Summer Soup

A light vegetable soup made with potatoes, tomatoes, corn, onion, butter, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Summer Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Parboil the sliced potatoes in enough hot water to cover them.

  2. While the potatoes are cooking, chop the tomatoes and slice the corn off the ears.

  3. Add the chopped tomatoes, corn, and onion to the pot with the parboiled potatoes.

  4. Drain the potatoes and vegetables, then place them in 2 quarts of cold water to cook.

Finish the soup

  1. Once cooked, rub the mixture through a colander and return the soup to the pot.

  2. Add the butter, salt, pepper, and minced parsley.

  3. If the soup is not thick enough, moisten the flour with cold water, thin it with the soup, and stir it in.

  4. Let the soup boil once, then 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 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

Potatoes
Starch that breaks down during cooking and thickens the soup body.
Tomatoes
Adds acidity and fresh flavor, and their juices add moisture.
Corn
Adds natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup if it needs more body, when stirred in as a slurry.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a colander. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a sieve breaks them into a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy and uneven in texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, tomato, corn, butter, pepper, parsley, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, tomato, corn, butter, pepper, parsley, flour. 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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