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Farina Soup

A hearty beef and mutton bone broth thickened with soaked farina and seasoned with herbs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Farina Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Farina Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the bones.

  2. Chop the meat and onion.

Make the broth

  1. Combine the meat, bones, onion, vegetables, herbs, and water in a pot.

  2. Boil slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Cool it.

  5. Skim off the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add the soaked farina and a pinch of baking soda.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

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

Farina
Thickens the soup as it simmers, giving it a light, body-building texture.
Beef
Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth during long, slow simmering.
Mutton bones
Add rich flavor and gelatin to the broth as they cook slowly.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the soup, which softens the farina and helps it break down.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat. Fat that is not removed after cooling forms a greasy layer and dulls the clean, savory taste of the broth.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

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