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Plaix Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup with potatoes, turnips, carrot, onion, and optional tomatoes, simmered slowly for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Plaix Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef in a pot with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add pepper, potatoes, turnips, carrot, onion, and tomatoes if using.

  2. Let the soup boil slowly for 4-5 hours.

  3. After 30 minutes, add salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup and skim off the fat.

  2. Boil for a few more minutes before serving.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin or fore-leg
Releases flavour and gelatin into the broth during long, slow simmering.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and thicken the soup slightly as their starch leaches out.
Turnips
Add a mildly sweet, earthy flavour and tender texture to the broth.
Onion
Builds aromatic sweetness and depth into the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam at the start. Foam that rises as the water first heats contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and free of bitter or off flavours.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, potato, turnip, carrot, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, potato, turnip, carrot, onion. 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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