Skip to main content
Main

Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup made with lean beef, vegetables, and optional seasonings, simmered for at least six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef in a large pot with cold water and a little salt.

  2. Bring to a boil over medium heat, skimming off any fat that rises to the surface.

  3. Once the fat has stopped rising, add the chopped vegetables and optional seasonings.

  4. Continue to simmer gently for at least six hours.

Serve

  1. Before serving, strain the soup through a sieve into a tureen with toasted bread.

  2. If desired, add vermicelli and boil for an additional 10 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.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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

Lean fresh beef
Provides the meat flavour and gelatin that give the broth body as it simmers.
Cold water
Extracts flavour and collagen from the beef slowly as it heats and simmers.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth during the long simmer.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savoury aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat as it rises. Fat and foam that rise early would otherwise cloud the broth and taste greasy. Removing them before adding vegetables keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the peach

The recipe marks peach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, clove):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, clove. 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.

More beef soup recipes

Clear 34Brown 23Quick 12French 6Barley 5Economical 4 See all 245 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes