Name: Crab Soup
Ingredients: 6 pounds leg of beef, cut into 4 pieces; ½ cup chopped parsley leaves; ½ cup chopped celery leaves or ½ celery root, finely chopped; ½ cup chopped leeks or white-skinned onion; 1 quart tomatoes, peeled and chopped; 1 tablespoon browned flour; 1 tablespoon fresh butter; ½ pint crab meat

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Crab Soup

Ingredients

6 pounds leg of beef, cut into 4 pieces
½ cup chopped parsley leaves
½ cup chopped celery leaves or ½ celery root, finely chopped
½ cup chopped leeks or white-skinned onion
1 quart tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon browned flour
1 tablespoon fresh butter
½ pint crab meat

Directions

Prepare the beef

Wash the beef in cold water.
Place the beef in a soup kettle.
Cover the beef with cold water.
Skim off any foam as the soup begins to boil.
Cover and simmer for 4 hours.

Add the vegetables and crab

Boil the crabs in water for 15 minutes or until the claws come off.
Remove the crabs and extract the meat.
After 3 hours of simmering, add the parsley, celery, and leeks.
Cook for 1 more hour.
Remove the beef when there are 3 pints of soup left.
Skim off the fat.
Add the tomatoes.
Cook slowly for 45 minutes.

Thicken and finish

In a skillet, heat the browned flour and butter.
Stir in a ladle of soup and boil for a few minutes.
Stir the mixture into the soup 5 minutes before the tomatoes are done.
Add the crab meat.
Heat through without boiling.

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.

Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,093 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together759 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 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

Leg of beef: Gives the long-simmered broth its body and rich meaty flavor.
Tomatoes: Add acidity and fruity flavor, and body as they break down into the soup.
Browned flour: Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Crab meat: Adds sweet, delicate seafood flavor to the finished soup.
Celery root or celery leaves: Contributes savory, aromatic vegetable flavor to the broth.
Leeks or white-skinned onion: Adds mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the crab meat. Crab is delicate and turns tough and rubbery if boiled, so it should only be heated through gently at the end.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, celery, leek, flour, butter, crab):

Turnipfits better
Chivefits better
Shallotfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, celery, leek, flour, butter, crab. 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.