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Soup

A soup made by boiling beef in water until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Boil beef in water until tender.

  2. Peel and chop potatoes, then boil until soft.

Cook the sides

  1. Roast lamb in oven until cooked through.

  2. Steam asparagus until bright green and tender.

Serve

  1. Serve soup with side of roasted lamb, mashed potatoes, and asparagus.

  2. Serve blackberries and strawberries with cream as dessert.

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. Potato + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

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

  2. Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Boiled until soft, they give the dish its starchy body once mashed.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, silky texture to the dessert.
Asparagus
Steamed until tender, it adds a bright green vegetable element and mild flavor.

The step that matters

Boil beef in water until tender. Beef is tough and needs long, gentle simmering so collagen breaks down into gelatin. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat, so keep the liquid at a low simmer and check tenderness with a fork.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, lamb, cream, bread, butter, milk):

  1. Asparagusthe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, lamb, cream, bread, butter, milk. 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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