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Ayrshire Soup

A hearty beef soup with marrow bones, vegetables, and oatmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ayrshire Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the oatmeal in 1 pint of water.

  2. Parboil the sliced potatoes in hot water for 10 minutes.

Make the stock

  1. Combine the chopped vegetables, herbs, meat, and bones in a soup pot with the cold water.

  2. Stew for 4 hours until the liquid reduces by one-third.

  3. Strain through a colander and set aside 2 quarts of stock for later.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the remaining stock and return it to the heat.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Add the soaked oatmeal and stew, covered, for 40 minutes, stirring often to prevent burning.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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

Lean beef
Breaks down during long stewing, giving the stock its deep, meaty flavour.
Marrow bones
Release collagen and fat during long simmering, adding body and richness to the stock.
Potatoes
Their starch thickens the soup as they cook and begin to break down.
Oatmeal
Its starch swells in the hot liquid, thickening the soup and giving it a soft texture.
Onions
Their sugars and aromatic compounds build the savoury base of the stock.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour as they soften in the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring in the oatmeal. Oatmeal starch thickens the liquid and settles quickly, so it scorches on the bottom of the pot if not stirred often. Scorched bits give a burnt taste to the whole soup.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, celery, potato, 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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