Skip to main content
Main

Vegetable Soup

A simple soup of cabbage, turnip, onion, tomatoes, corn, and stock, seasoned with bay leaf, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Cabbage and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the cabbage, turnip, onion, bay leaf, salt, and stock or boiling water in a soup kettle.

  2. Cook rapidly until almost tender.

  3. Remove the bay leaf.

  4. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes.

  5. Stir in the corn and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  6. Season to taste.

Serve

  1. Pour into a heated tureen.

  2. Sprinkle with minced parsley before serving.

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. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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

Cabbage
Adds body and a mild sweetness as it softens in the broth.
Turnip
Contributes starchy bulk and a slightly peppery flavor to the broth.
Onion
Builds the savory base flavor of the soup as it cooks down.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fruity brightness that balances the vegetables.
Corn
Adds natural sweetness and a tender bite.

The step that matters

Cook rapidly until almost tender. Brisk boiling softens dense vegetables like turnip and cabbage before the more delicate ingredients go in. Adding tomatoes and corn too early would overcook them and leave the soup flat.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, cabbage, turnip, onion, parsley, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, cabbage, turnip, onion, parsley, 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.

More vegetable soup recipes

Spring 46Beef 45Winter 31French 11Lentil 9Clear 8 See all 425 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipes