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Clear Soup

A clear soup made from bone, meat, vegetables, and seasonings, clarified with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Clear Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the soup bone, meat, tomatoes, carrot, celery, parsley, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and onions with cloves in a large pot.

  2. Cover with water, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for the entire day.

  3. Strain the soup, cool it, and skim off any grease.

Clarify and finish

  1. The next day, clarify the soup using the whites of eggs and eggshells.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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

Soup bone
Releases collagen and flavour into the broth during long simmering, giving body to the soup.
Meat
Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down in the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a mild fruity flavour that balances the rich broth.

The step that matters

Skimming grease after straining. Fat that is not removed after cooling will leave the soup greasy and cloudy on the palate. Chilling the strained broth lets the fat solidify on the surface so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, tomato, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper, clove):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, tomato, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper, clove. 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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