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Brown Soup

A hearty beef soup made with shin of beef, bone, vegetables, and a roux of rice flour, butter, and sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Brown Soup

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Brown Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat from the bone and remove the marrow.

  2. Heat the marrow and butter in a large saucepan until smoking.

  3. Add the meat and bone, browning them along with the diced vegetables.

Simmer

  1. Pour in the cold water and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  2. Add the salt, black pepper, white pepper, and cloves, then reduce heat and simmer for 4 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid and return it to the saucepan.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix the rice flour with Harvey's sauce and mushroom catsup until smooth.

  2. Stir the mixture into the strained liquid and boil for 10 minutes.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Provides rich meaty flavour and gelatin that gives the broth body as it simmers.
Butter
Browns the meat and vegetables, adding roasted, savoury flavour to the soup base.
Rice flour
Thickens the strained liquid so it becomes a smoother, fuller soup.
Onion
Browns and sweetens as it cooks, adding depth to the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the broth as it simmers.
Celery
Adds aromatic savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the meat and marrow. Heating the marrow and butter until smoking and browning the meat creates Maillard browning, which gives the soup its deep colour and roasted flavour. Pale meat yields a flatter broth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, rice, flour, mushroom, sauce, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, rice, flour, mushroom, sauce, 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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