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Good Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup made with shin beef, bones, vegetables, and herbs simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Good Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine beef and bones with water in a large pot; cook slowly for 2 hours, skimming often.

  2. Add herbs and all sliced vegetables except one carrot; cook for an additional 2 hours.

  3. Strain the broth, reserving at least 5 quarts; place the meat and bones in a stock pot and season well.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the reserved broth, keeping some for immediate use; pulp the vegetables into the soup.

  2. Cool the soup and remove the fat; season to taste and return to the heat.

  3. Dice the reserved carrot and cook it separately in a little water; add it to the soup and simmer for 10 minutes before serving.

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. Celery + carrottop 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin beef
Breaks down during slow cooking, releasing gelatin and flavour into the broth for body.
Bones
Release collagen and minerals during long simmering, adding richness and body to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the broth as it cooks down over the long simmer.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the soup as they soften and release their flavour.
Turnips
Add mild earthy flavour and body as they soften into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth during the first simmer. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that rise to the surface, keeping the broth clear and free of a greasy or murky taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, carrot, turnip, 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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