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Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup with potatoes, cabbage, corn, onions, celery, and optional tomatoes, served with forcemeat or egg balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the cracked joints of beef in a pot and cover the pot with water.

  2. Bring the contents to a boil and skim the surface.

  3. Reduce the heat and let the soup simmer slowly until the meat is thoroughly cooked, keeping the pot covered while simmering.

  4. Once cooled, remove the fat that hardens on top of the soup.

Add the vegetables

  1. Peel, wash and slice the potatoes, then add them to the soup.

  2. Shred the cabbage and add it to the soup.

  3. Add the green corn, the onions and the celery to the soup.

  4. Add tomatoes if desired.

  5. Let the soup simmer slowly, ensuring nothing burns while simmering.

  6. Strain the soup if preferred.

Make the forcemeat and egg balls

  1. Mix chopped beef, egg, butter, bread-crumbs, salt, and pepper for forcemeat balls.

  2. Moisten the mixture with water from the stewed meat.

  3. Form the mixture into balls and fry the balls until brown.

  4. Mash boiled egg yolks, mix the mashed yolks with raw yolk and flour, and season the mixture.

  5. Form the mixture into balls.

  6. Drop the egg-balls into the soup just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cracked joints of beef
Builds the savoury broth and provides the meat once simmered until thoroughly cooked.
Potatoes
Starch that thickens the soup slightly and adds body to the broth.
White cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it softens in the simmering broth.
Chopped beef
Binds with egg and bread-crumbs to form firm, meaty forcemeat balls.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Bread-crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat balls a tender, light texture.

The step that matters

Skim the surface and keep the simmer slow. Boiling hard emulsifies fat and scum into the broth, making it cloudy and greasy. A gentle simmer with skimming keeps the broth clear and the meat tender.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, cabbage, corn, onion, celery, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, cabbage, corn, onion, celery, parsley. 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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