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Meat Soup

A clear soup made from lean meat, water, optional bones, and vegetables, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and lamb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 896 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Meat Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the meat and bones thoroughly.

  2. Combine the meat and soft water in a clean soup pot.

  3. Heat the pot gradually.

  4. Bring the soup to a simmer.

Simmer

  1. Keep the pot covered while simmering.

  2. Skim off fat and scum frequently during cooking.

  3. Add cooked meat or bones after the soup has simmered for 45 minutes.

  4. If the soup boils hard, replenish with boiling water as needed.

  5. Allow the soup to simmer for at least 7 hours.

  6. Wash, peel, and cut vegetables into small pieces.

  7. Add the vegetables to the soup to cook thoroughly.

Finish

  1. If using an iron pot, strain the soup into a tin or earthen vessel immediately after cooking.

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

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

  2. Lamb + muttontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

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

  3. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Clear lean meat
Provides the main flavor and body of the broth as it breaks down.
Bones
Release gelatin and marrow flavor, giving the soup richness and body.
Soft water
Serves as the cooking liquid that extracts flavor from meat and bones.
Vegetables
Add aroma and mild sweetness to the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Keep the soup at a gentle simmer. A hard boil makes the broth cloudy and emulsifies fat into it, while a gentle simmer keeps it clear. Skimming fat and scum during cooking further improves clarity and flavor.

“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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