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English Soup

A hearty beef soup with chicken bones, vegetables, and vermicelli, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

English Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine beef strips, chicken bones, and 3 quarts of cold water in a large soup pot, and heat gradually.

  2. Once boiling, skim the surface and add fried onions and chopped vegetables, and 3 more quarts of cold water.

  3. Cover and simmer for 5 hours, ensuring it doesn't boil too fast and the liquid remains at least 3 quarts.

  4. Strain the soup, removing the meat and bones.

  5. Rub the vegetables through a colander and strain the soup again into a clean kettle.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the soup and simmer for 10 minutes after it boils again, skimming often.

  2. Break the vermicelli into short lengths and add it to the soup after reserving 2 quarts for stock.

  3. Cook gently for 12 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.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef brisket
Gives the stock its meaty body and rich, savory flavor as it simmers.
Chicken bones
Release gelatin and savory depth into the stock during long simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma when fried in dripping before going into the stock.
Vermicelli
Adds starch and body to the finished soup as it cooks gently.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 5 hours. A rapid boil makes the stock cloudy and greasy and can toughen the meat. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer gives a clearer, more flavorful broth.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, chicken, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, chicken, carrot, celery, 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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