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Summer Soup

A hearty beef broth with green corn, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and fresh cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Summer Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef shank in a kettle with 4 quarts of water.

  2. Boil slowly for 6 hours, until the water reduces to 2 quarts.

Add the vegetables and finish

  1. An hour before serving, add the green corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and onions.

  2. Add sweet herbs if desired, and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Just before serving, mix 1 tablespoon of flour into the fresh cream and add it to the 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh cream
Adds richness and body, and the flour stirred into it helps thicken the soup slightly.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it blends smoothly into the hot soup instead of curdling or clumping.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding starch and body to the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that brighten the broth.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and cream just before serving. Flour mixed into cream and added to hot soup can clump or curdle if it is not blended smoothly first and the soup is kept at a hard boil. Adding it at the end, with the soup off the boil, keeps the cream smooth and the texture even.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, corn, potato, onion, pepper, cream, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, corn, potato, onion, pepper, cream, 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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