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Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup with vegetables, barley, and seasonings served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Crack the bone of the beef into small pieces.

  2. Wash the beef pieces.

  3. Place the beef in a kettle with 5-6 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil.

Simmer the soup

  1. Boil for about 2 hours until the beef begins to get tender.

  2. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

  3. Boil for 1 hour longer.

  4. Add the diced carrot, turnips, rice or barley, diced celery, and powdered savory.

  5. Boil for 15 minutes.

  6. Add the diced potatoes.

  7. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat from the soup.

  2. Discard the bones.

  3. Place the meat on a dish, garnishing with parsley.

  4. Serve hot with mustard and catsup.

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 + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Supplies rich meat flavor and collagen that softens into the broth during long simmering.
Rice or pearl barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during simmering.
Potatoes
Break down partly during cooking, adding body and starch to the soup.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add mild sweetness to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic savory flavor to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmer the beef until tender before adding vegetables. Connective tissue in shin needs a long, gentle boil to break down into gelatin. Adding vegetables too early can make them overcook and turn mushy before the meat is ready.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, turnip, rice, celery, potato. 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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