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Summer Soup

A hearty beef broth with green corn, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and fresh cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Summer Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef shank in a kettle with 4 quarts of water.

  2. Boil slowly for 6 hours, until the water is reduced to 2 quarts.

Finish the soup

  1. An hour before serving, add the green corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and onions.

  2. Add sweet herbs if desired, and season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Just before serving, mix the flour smoothly into the fresh cream and add it to the soup.

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

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

  2. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Beef shank
Gives the broth its meaty flavor as it simmers slowly for hours.
Fresh cream
Adds richness and body, mellowing the soup's flavor and giving a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it blends smoothly into the soup without lumps.
Potatoes
Add starch that gives the soup body and makes it heartier.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fresh flavor that brightens the broth.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the cream. Flour clumps if added dry or to hot liquid. Whisking it smoothly into cold cream first lets it disperse evenly, so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, corn, potato, onion, pepper, cream, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, corn, potato, onion, pepper, cream, 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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