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Soup

Soup, Cheshire

A hearty beef hock soup with thyme, marjoram, celery, onions, pepper, sea salt, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Soup, Cheshire

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the hock of beef in a large pot with the cold water.

  2. Simmer gently for 6 hours, skimming regularly.

  3. Add the thyme, sweet marjoram, celery, and finely chopped onions.

  4. Skim off all the fat, then season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and ketchup.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Marjoram + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together615 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Hock of beef
Gives the soup its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook down.
Celery
Adds a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming during the long simmer. Regular skimming removes foam and excess fat that would otherwise cloud the broth and leave it greasy. Gentle simmering keeps the broth clear rather than turbulent.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, thyme, marjoram, celery, pepper, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, thyme, marjoram, celery, pepper, ketchup. 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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