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Clear Soup

A clear soup made from beef, veal, onion, carrot, celery, and egg whites, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Clear Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. In a kettle, brown the butter over high heat.

  2. Add the beef and veal, stirring until nicely browned.

  3. Cover and stew gently for 30 minutes.

Simmer the stock

  1. Add the cold water and let simmer for 4 hours.

  2. Add the onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, and parsley, and cook slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the stock through a fine sieve or cloth.

  4. When cool, remove the fat from the top.

Clarify and serve

  1. Bring the stock to a boil, then add salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Mix the egg white and shell in a cup of cold water, then add to the boiling stock.

  3. Boil hard for 10 minutes, then add another cup of cold water.

  4. Let the soup boil again for 5 minutes and serve hot in cups.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meat flavor and body to the stock as it simmers.
Veal from the knuckle
Adds gelatin-rich body and savory depth to the stock during long simmering.
Egg white and shell
Collects fine particles as it coagulates, clearing the stock into a transparent broth.
Onion, carrot, and celery
Add sweetness and aromatic background flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the egg white and shell to the boiling stock. The egg white must be fully mixed in before the stock boils. As it heats it coagulates and traps cloudy particles; if the stock is stirred or boiled too vigorously too early, the particles are redispersed and the broth stays cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef, veal, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, veal, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper. 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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