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Minced Beef Soup

A hearty soup made with minced beef, mutton bones, vegetables, herbs, and buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Crack the mutton bones.

  2. Place the cracked bones in a pot with the vegetables and 3 quarts of cold water.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid.

  5. Rub the vegetables to a pulp.

  6. Add the strained liquid to the minced beef.

  7. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  8. Cook gently for 1 hour after boiling.

  9. Strain again.

  10. Press the solids hard.

Finish the soup

  1. Reserve some beef for force-meat.

  2. Season the remaining beef.

  3. Pour back half the soup as stock.

  4. Chop the herbs.

  5. Add the herbs to the soup with pepper and salt.

  6. Boil the soup.

  7. Skim the soup for 15 minutes.

  8. Serve the soup over long strips of buttered crisp toast.

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

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

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

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together571 recipes

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

  5. Onion + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 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

Lean beef
Provides the rich meaty flavour and body of the soup as it simmers.
Mutton bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the water during the long boil.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as they cook down.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body when rubbed to a pulp into the soup.

The step that matters

Skim the soup for 15 minutes. Fat and fine impurities rise to the surface as the soup heats. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy texture.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, carrot, onion, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, carrot, onion, 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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