Skip to main content
Main

Baked Soup

A hearty soup made by baking layered beef, veal, ham, vegetables, farina, corn, and celery in a jar with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baked Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into long strips.

  2. Dice the vegetables.

  3. Pack the meat and vegetables in alternate layers in a broad, low jar that can go into the oven.

  4. Strew the layers with farina and corn.

  5. Fill the jar with water.

  6. Cover the jar tightly, sealing the edges with a paste of flour and water to keep in steam.

  7. Prepare this on Saturday night.

Bake

  1. At bedtime, place the jar in a pan of cold water in the oven to heat gradually.

  2. Bake until dinner time.

Serve and store

  1. Pour the soup into a bowl.

  2. Remove the meat.

  3. Season it.

  4. Place it in the stock pot.

  5. Pour as much of the soup as you can spare over the meat.

  6. Season it.

  7. Set aside for tomorrow.

  8. Add pepper and salt to the portion for today.

  9. 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

  4. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Beef
Provides the main meat flavour and body to the broth as it slowly cooks.
Veal
Adds tender meat and gelatin, giving the soup a fuller, silkier body.
Lean ham
Contributes savoury, salty depth to the broth.
Farina
Thickens the soup slightly as its starch absorbs liquid during the long cook.
Corn
Adds sweetness and a soft texture to the broth.

The step that matters

Sealing the lid with flour paste. A tight seal traps steam so the liquid stays in the jar and the meat cooks gently in its own moisture; gaps let steam escape and the soup can dry out or cook unevenly over the long bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, carrot, corn, celery, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, carrot, corn, celery, 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.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes