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Family Soup

A hearty beef soup with potatoes, carrots, turnip, onion, bacon, and cabbage simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip 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 ↓

Family Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Cook the onion with the beef and bacon in a frying pan until the meat is slightly browned.

  2. Drain the fat from the pan.

  3. Transfer the meat and vegetables to a stewpan.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add 2 quarts of water to the stewpan.

  2. Simmer the contents for 1 hour.

  3. Skim the surface of the stew.

  4. Gradually add 2 more quarts of water.

  5. Once the vegetables are tender, puree them through a colander.

  6. After 3 hours of simmering the meat, remove it from the stewpan.

  7. Continue simmering the soup for a while longer.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the soup with the potato puree.

  2. Return the meat, cut into small pieces.

  3. Serve hot with toasted bread.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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. 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

Potatoes
Cooked and pureed, their starch thickens the broth into a body-rich soup.
Beef
Slow simmering turns the shin meat tender and flavours the broth.
Bacon
Renders fat and adds smoky, savoury flavour to the base.
Onion
Softens and browns with the meat, adding sweetness and aroma.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the soup.
Cabbage
Softens during simmering, adding bulk and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with the potato puree. Cooked potato releases starch that thickens the broth as it is stirred in. Adding it gradually and checking the consistency prevents a soup that is too thick or gluey.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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