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Soup

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A hearty soup made with beef, mutton, isinglass, vermicelli, mushroom ketchup, allspice, sage, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 331 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Invalid Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine isinglass and chopped meat in cold water.

  2. Gradually bring to a boil, skimming well.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 4 to 5 hours until reduced to 1 quart.

Finish

  1. Strain through a fine sieve and remove all fat.

  2. Season with salt to taste.

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. Allspice + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 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. Mushroom + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Beef + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,028 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meaty flavour and body of the broth as it simmers.
Mutton
Adds rich meat flavour and gelatin-rich body to the broth during long simmering.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like fining agent that gathers impurities so the soup can be skimmed clear.
Vermicelli
Thin pasta that softens in the broth and adds starchy body to the soup.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Gradually bring to a boil, skimming well.. Heating slowly lets proteins and impurities rise to the surface gradually, where they can be skimmed away. Bringing it to a hard boil too fast would stir them into the liquid, leaving the soup cloudy and greasy.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, mushroom, ketchup, corn, allspice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, mushroom, ketchup, corn, allspice. 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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