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A Brown Beef Soup

A beef soup with round beef, carrots, turnip, onions, celery, toasted bread, soy sauce, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Brown Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the beef into a square shape and place it in a pot with water, cloves, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Add the diced carrots, turnip, chopped onions, chopped celery, and toasted bread to the pot.

  4. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

  5. Remove the meat.

  6. If not browned enough, add soy sauce.

Finish the next day

  1. For the next day, cut up 2 carrots, 1 turnip, and 2 onions in dice form.

  2. Place the meat and vegetables in a saucepan.

  3. Add pepper, salt, a little clove, and just enough water to cover the meat.

  4. Stew gently for 2-3 hours.

  5. Remove the meat.

  6. Mix flour with water and mustard, then stir into the gravy.

  7. Bring to a boil and pour over the meat and vegetables.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and enriching the broth.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells in hot liquid.
Soy sauce
Adds savory depth and helps darken the broth and meat color.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the gravy.
Toasted bread
Lends body and helps thicken the broth as it breaks down.

The step that matters

Brown the meat with soy sauce only if needed. Soy sauce adds color and salty umami, so adding it too early or in excess can make the broth overly dark and salty. Taste and adjust after the long boil reduces the liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, bread. 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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