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Portable Soup

A thickened broth made from calves' feet, mutton, pork, onion, celery, carrots, and salt, then cut into pieces and dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Portable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. Place the calves' feet, mutton, pork, onion, celery, carrots, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Add just enough water to cover the ingredients and bring to a boil.

  3. When nearly done, suspend a clove bag in the liquid.

Strain and reduce

  1. Remove the meats and press them through a sieve.

  2. Evaporate the liquid in a water bath until it reaches a honey-like consistency.

Set and dry

  1. Pour the thickened liquid onto a clean, smooth stone or slate.

  2. Once cold, cut it into pieces and dry.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mutton + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Their collagen dissolves into gelatin, giving the liquid body and a firm set.
Mutton
Adds deep meaty flavor and richness to the liquid.
Pork
Adds meaty flavor and some fat that rounds out the liquid.

The step that matters

Evaporating to a honey-like consistency. The gelatin and flavor concentrate as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves the mass too soft to set, while going too far makes it brittle and tough once cold.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pork, celery, carrot):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, celery, carrot. 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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