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Beef Soup

A hearty beef broth with potatoes, carrot, onion, gumbo pods, bay leaf, parsley, and caramel.

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 ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil trimmings of roast beef and beef-steak bones for three hours.

  2. Cool and skim off the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Add pepper, salt, potatoes, carrot, onion, gumbo pods, bay leaf, and parsley.

  2. Add a few drops of caramel and serve hot.

  3. Strain if you prefer a thinner soup.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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

Beef trimmings and steak bones
Release meat flavor and gelatin into the broth, giving body and richness.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding starch that thickens the soup.
Gumbo pods
Release mucilage as they simmer, adding body and a light thickening to the soup.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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