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Dresden Soup

A hearty beef and mutton soup with pig's feet, herbs, mace, and force‑meat balls, finished with butter, rice flour, Worcestershire sauce, lemon, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dresden Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine beef, pig's feet, and bones with 6 quarts of cold water in a large pot. Cook slowly for 5 hours.

  2. Skim the surface, then add onions, mace, herbs, and grated carrots. Stew for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the meat and pig's feet, leaving the bones in the pot. Cut the flesh from the feet and return the bones to the pot.

Prepare the force-meat balls

  1. Set aside half of the meat and a few pieces of beef to cool. Chop the remaining meat finely.

  2. Mix chopped meat with salt, pepper, and raw egg to form small force-meat balls. Roll them in flour and place on a greased plate.

  3. Bake the force-meat balls in the oven until firm, then cool.

Finish and serve

  1. After the soup has cooked for an additional 30 minutes, strain and season it.

  2. Divide the soup into two portions. In one portion, add diced meat from pig's feet and beef, and cover it in an earthenware vessel.

  3. Return the other portion to the heat. Thicken with melted butter mixed with rice flour, then add Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, and claret.

  4. Place the force-meat balls in a heated tureen, pour the soup over them, cover for 5 minutes, and serve.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the stock its meaty flavour and supplies the chopped meat for the force-meat balls.
Mutton and beef bones
Release gelatin and collagen during long simmering, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Raw egg
Binds the chopped meat so the force-meat balls hold their shape during baking.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup when mixed with melted butter, giving it a smoother, fuller texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and smoothing the thickened soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the soup and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the second portion. Rice flour must be fully blended into melted butter before it meets hot liquid; otherwise it clumps and leaves the soup grainy instead of smoothly thickened.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, onion, carrot, butter, rice, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, onion, carrot, butter, rice, 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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