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Brown Soup

A hearty soup made from veal knuckles, round steak, carrots, celery, onion, and simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Brown Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Brown Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cook veal knuckles or shanks in 3 quarts of water for 1 hour, skimming off any scum.

  2. Cook carrots, celery, and onion in 1 quart of water for 30 minutes.

Brown and simmer

  1. Brown the meat in a very hot frying pan.

  2. Gradually add some of the soup to the browned meat.

  3. Once dark brown, add the meat mixture to the remaining soup and boil slowly for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup and add the vegetable soup.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Serve with carrots cut into small pieces.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckles or shanks
Release gelatin and meaty flavor into the water, giving the soup body over a long simmer.
Round steak
Browns to build deep, savory flavor that colors and enriches the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aroma to the soup, and are served as pieces in the bowl.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the meat. Meat must be seared in a very hot pan until dark brown, because the Maillard reaction creates the roasted flavors and color that a plain boiled soup lacks. Pale meat gives a flat, grey-tasting broth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, celery, 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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