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Potage Aux Croutons

A hearty beef soup simmered with onions, carrots, herbs, and catsup, served with fried croutons.

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 ↓

Potage Aux Croutons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef and vegetables

  1. Fry the beef and vegetables in plenty of hot dripping for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the dripping.

  3. Set the meat and vegetables aside in the pan.

Make the soup

  1. Add the meat, vegetables, and herbs to the water and heat slowly to a boil.

  2. Boil the soup for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the soup.

  4. Cool the soup.

  5. Skim off the fat.

Make the croutons

  1. Cut small rounds from stale bread to make croutons.

  2. Fry the croutons in the dripping.

  3. Drain the croutons.

  4. Place the croutons in an open oven to dry.

Finish and serve

  1. Season the soup to taste.

  2. Boil the soup for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the croutons to the soup.

  4. Heat the soup for 3 minutes without boiling.

  5. Serve the soup.

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. Onion + carrottop 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. Carrot + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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 main flavor and meat for the soup as it simmers slowly.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth when fried and simmered in the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the soup as it cooks.
Fried bread
Adds crisp texture and absorbs broth when floated in the soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat. After long simmering and cooling, fat solidifies on the surface. Removing it keeps the soup clear and prevents greasiness, so skim thoroughly before reheating.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, onion, carrot, 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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