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Shin of Beef Soup

A hearty soup made from shin of beef, vegetables, and barley, simmered slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Shin of Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Have the butcher saw the shin-bone into 2-inch pieces.

  2. Wash the meat in cold water.

  3. Mix salt and pepper, rub it into the meat, and place it in a soup pot.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add water equal to the weight of the meat and bring to a boil.

  2. Skim off any scum, cover, and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Skim again, then add the carrot, turnip, leek, parsley, potatoes, and barley.

  4. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Add another tablespoon of salt and a thickening made from flour and water, stirring it in.

  6. Cover and cook for an additional 15 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. Leek + barleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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

Shin of beef
Collagen-rich connective tissue breaks down during long simmering, giving the broth body and tender meat.
Wheat flour
Mixed with water and stirred in, it thickens the broth as it cooks.
Pearl barley
Swells and softens during simmering, adding body and starch to the soup.
Potatoes
Soften through simmering and release starch that thickens the broth slightly.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum. Skimming the foam that rises during the first boil removes impurities and proteins, keeping the broth clearer and cleaner in flavor.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, turnip, leek, parsley, barley. 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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