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Brown Soup

A hearty beef soup with carrots, turnip, onion, herbs, thickened with flour or cornstarch.

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

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Brown Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  2. Peel and slice the onion.

  3. Wash and scrape the carrot, peel the turnip, and cut both into long strips.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the dripping in a pot until hot, then brown the onion until deep brown.

  2. Pour off excess dripping, add the meat, water, and seasonings.

  3. Bring to a boil, then add the vegetables and herbs tied in muslin.

  4. Simmer for two hours, skimming as needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the herbs, thicken the soup, and serve.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 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

Shin of beef
Provides the meat and rich flavor that the soup is built on.
Onion
Browning in dripping builds deep, savory flavor in the broth.
Dripping
Fat that carries heat for browning the onion and adds savory richness.
Flour or cornstarch
Thickens the broth by swelling in liquid as it heats.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the broth during the long simmer.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the broth during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Brown the onion until deep brown. Deep browning creates Maillard flavors that give the broth its color and savory depth. Pale onions make a thinner, blander soup, while over-darkened onions turn bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, thyme, parsley, turnip, flour. 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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