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Beef Stock Soup

A hearty soup made from beef, bones, vegetables, herbs, and seasonings, finished with ketchup and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef Stock Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat.

  2. Chop the vegetables.

  3. Combine the meat, vegetables, herbs, and cracked bones with 2 quarts of water in a pot.

Make the stock

  1. Heat slowly.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Skim the surface.

  4. Add the remaining 5 quarts of cold water.

  5. Cook for 4 to 5 hours.

  6. Strain the mixture.

  7. Rub the vegetables to extract flavor.

  8. Reserve 2 quarts of the liquid for today's soup.

  9. Return the meat and bones to the pot.

  10. Add the reserved liquid and 1 quart of cold water.

  11. Cover tightly.

  12. Simmer for 2 more hours.

  13. Transfer to an earthenware vessel.

  14. Season.

  15. Cool before refrigerating.

Finish the soup

  1. Cool the reserved soup.

  2. Remove the fat.

  3. Season.

  4. Reheat.

  5. Stir in the ketchup.

  6. Pour over the fried bread 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meaty flavor and body that the stock carries into the soup.
Bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long simmering, adding body to the stock.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they cook slowly into the stock.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and aroma to the stock.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the stock.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim the surface. Skimming the foam that rises during the first boil removes impurities that would otherwise cloud the stock and taint its flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, bread, tomato. 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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