Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Beef Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat and bones
Cut the meat into small pieces. Crack the bones.
Place the meat and bones in a pot with 1 quart of water.
Bring slowly to a boil.
Add the remaining 2 quarts of water.
Boil slowly for 3 hours. Cover for 2 hours.
Slightly lift the lid for the last hour.
Prepare the vegetables
Wash and peel the turnip, carrot, and onion. Scrape the celery. Wash the cabbage.
Dice all the vegetables.
Soak them in cold, slightly salted water for 30 minutes.
Stew the carrot in hot water until tender. Set the carrot aside to cool.
Combine the other vegetables in enough cold water to cover them. Boil until they break down.
Strain the vegetable mixture 30 minutes before finishing the soup. Press the mixture to a pulp.
Finish the soup
Return the liquid to the saucepan. Add a little salt. Bring to a boil to clear it. Skim off any foam.
Add pepper and salt to taste, unless the ham has already salted it.
Boil covered for 20 minutes.
Strain into an earthen dish. Let cool until the fat rises. Skim off as much fat as possible.
Rinse the pot with water. Return the soup to the pot. Boil briskly for 1 minute.
Add the carrot. Skim. Serve.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together897 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lean beef
- Provides rich meaty flavour and body as it simmers slowly in the water.
- Marrow bone
- Releases gelatin and marrow into the broth, adding body and richness.
- Onion
- Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it breaks down into the broth.
- Cabbage
- Softens and breaks down into the pulp, adding body and mild sweetness.
The step that matters
Boil slowly and keep the lid partly open. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and lets collagen and connective tissue break down into tender meat and body. A hard rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and clouds it.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, turnip, carrot, cabbage, celery, pepper):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Lettucefits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, turnip, carrot, cabbage, celery, 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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