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Broiled Bones Soup

A soup made from broiled beef and veal bones, salt pork, onions, herbs, tapioca, and walnut catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Broiled Bones Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bones

  1. Crack the bones well and lay them on a grill over hot coals until the meat is frizzled.

  2. Fry the salt pork and onions in a frying pan until the onions are golden brown.

  3. Remove the pork and onions, leaving the fat in the pan, and fry the bones for 5 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Place the onions and chopped herbs in a soup pot, then add the bones.

  2. Cover with water and boil slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the soup, cool it, and remove the fat.

  4. Reheat the soup, season it, and boil once to remove any scum.

  5. Skim the surface and add the tapioca, which should have soaked in cold water for 2 hours.

  6. Simmer until the tapioca is clear, then stir in the walnut catsup 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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Veal
Adds body and rich flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Salt pork fat
Carries browning flavour into the bones and onions when fried.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth of flavour once browned.
Granulated tapioca
Thickens the soup as it becomes clear and glossy when simmered.
Walnut catsup
Adds a dark, savoury, slightly tangy aroma stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface before adding the tapioca. Removing fat and scum leaves a clear broth. Tapioca added to a greasy or murky soup can cloud it and make the flavour heavy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pork, onion, 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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