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Minced Beef Soup

A hearty soup made with minced beef, mutton bones, carrots, onions, herbs, and asparagus, served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Crack the mutton bones into splinters.

  2. Place the splintered bones in a pot with 3 quarts of cold water and the vegetables.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid, rubbing the vegetables to a pulp.

Make the soup

  1. Add the strained liquid and the remaining 2 quarts of cold water to the minced beef.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Cook gently for 1 hour.

  4. Strain and press the soup hard.

  5. Reserve some of the beef for force-meat.

  6. Season the rest and pour back half the soup as stock for tomorrow.

  7. Chop the herbs.

  8. Add the chopped herbs to the soup with pepper and salt.

  9. Boil the soup again.

  10. Skim the soup for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup over long strips of buttered crisp toast in a tureen.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Carrot + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together571 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

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavour and body of the soup as it simmers and breaks down.
Mutton bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the water during long simmering, enriching the stock.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as they cook down.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body when rubbed to a pulp and strained into the liquid.

The step that matters

Skim the soup for 15 minutes. Fat and fine impurities rise to the surface during simmering. Removing them keeps the soup clear and prevents a greasy texture.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, carrot, onion, pepper, butter, bread. 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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