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Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup with vegetables and barley, simmered for hours.

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 ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Crack the beef bone into small pieces and wash the cracked bone pieces.

  2. Place the beef in a kettle with cold water and bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Boil for about 2 hours until tender.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Boil for 1 hour longer.

Add the vegetables

  1. Add minced carrot, turnips, rice or barley, celery, and summer savory, and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Add potatoes and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat from the soup and take out the bones.

  2. Place the meat on a dish.

  3. Garnish with parsley and serve hot with mustard.

  4. Reheat leftovers with a little boiling water.

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

Beef shin
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and enriching the broth.
Beef bone
Cracking and simmering releases marrow and gelatin, adding body and richness to the broth.
Rice or pearl barley
Starch thickens the broth slightly and adds body as it cooks.
Potatoes
Starch softens during simmering, adding body and making the soup more filling.
Turnips
Release mild sweetness and flavor into the broth as they simmer.

The step that matters

Season with salt and pepper after the first long boil. Salt added while the meat is still tough can concentrate as water evaporates during the long simmer, so tasting near the end keeps the broth balanced.

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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