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Baked Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, vegetables, rice, and tomatoes, baked in a covered earthenware jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the beef and vegetables early in the day.

  2. Mix all ingredients well and place in a strong earthenware jar with a good cover.

Bake

  1. Coat the top thickly with a stiff paste of flour and water to exclude air.

  2. Set the jar in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for six hours.

  3. Grease the paste occasionally to prevent scorching or cracking.

  4. For best results, place the jar in a dripping or baking pan of boiling water.

Serve

  1. Serve without straining.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main protein and savoury body of the soup as it cooks slowly.
Rice
Thickens the soup slightly as its starch releases during the long cooking.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fruity flavour that balances the rich beef.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour and a little texture to the broth.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the liquid.

The step that matters

Seal the flour-and-water paste on the jar. The paste must cover the top thickly so air cannot enter. Greasing it during baking prevents it from scorching or cracking, which would let steam and air escape unevenly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, turnip, onion, carrot, parsley, rice):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, turnip, onion, carrot, parsley, rice. 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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