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Clear Turnip Soup

A clear soup made with lean beef, Chinese turnip, scallion, garlic, beef stock, soy sauce, and salt.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and garlic work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 664 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Time30 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: soy, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: sesame

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the beef into 2-inch lengths.

  2. Peel the turnip, cut it into 2-inch pieces, then slice.

  3. Cut the scallion into 2-inch lengths and mince the garlic.

Make the soup

  1. Bring the stock to a boil.

  2. Add the beef and bring to a boil a second time.

  3. Skim off the froth and add the turnip, scallion, garlic, soy sauce, and salt.

  4. Lower the flame and simmer for 30 minutes.

Rich variation

  1. For a rich turnip soup, follow the procedure for rich soups.

  2. Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in a heavy-bottomed pot and brown the meat.

  3. Add the turnip, scallion, and garlic.

  4. Add the soy sauce and salt, then the stock.

  5. Bring the soup to a boil.

  6. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Turnip + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together664 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beef + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Beef + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Turnip + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Garlic + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together4,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides savory flavor and body as it simmers into the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and soft texture as it cooks in the broth.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savory depth that rounds out the broth.

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, sauce):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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