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Macaroni Soup

A beef broth with macaroni, onion, carrot, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef, bone, and cold water in an earthen pot.

  2. Heat gradually on a cool part of the range for three hours.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Cook gently for half an hour with the onion, carrot, and parsley.

  5. Strain the soup through a soup‑strainer, then through a piece of wet table‑linen for clarity.

  6. If the soup has reduced, add boiling water to make 1½ cups.

  7. Remove the fat from the soup.

Season and serve

  1. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and clove.

  2. Half an hour before serving, cook the macaroni in a cup of boiling water until tender.

  3. Heat and pour the seasoned broth over the macaroni just 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soup beef
Releases flavour and body into the broth as it simmers slowly.
Bone
Adds gelatin and depth to the broth, giving it a fuller mouthfeel.
Macaroni
Softens in the hot broth and adds starch and bulk to the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the broth during cooking.
Carrot
Contributes mild sweetness and body to the simmered broth.

The step that matters

Heating gradually and skimming the fat. Starting the beef and water cold and heating slowly lets the flavour and gelatin extract gently, giving a clearer broth. Removing the fat before serving keeps the soup from tasting greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, parsley, pepper, sugar, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, parsley, pepper, sugar, clove. 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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