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To Clear Soup

A clear soup clarified by egg whites and crushed shells, simmered from stock, beef, carrot, turnip, and leek.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

To Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine 2 quarts of cold stock, ½ pound of chopped raw lean beef, 1 diced carrot, 1 diced small turnip, and 1 diced leek in a pot.

  2. Set over medium heat, stirring constantly until it boils, then let it simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through fine cloth and flannel.

Clarify and strain

  1. Stir the whites and crushed shells of 2 eggs into 3 quarts of cold soup.

  2. Place over heat and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, let stand for 10 minutes, then strain through a flannel bag.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  5. Beef + leektop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw lean beef
Its proteins gather and trap cloudy particles, helping the soup turn clear as it is clarified.
Egg whites
As they cook they coagulate and carry suspended particles up, clarifying the broth.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that all the other flavors and clarifying agents are carried in.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg whites into cold soup. The whites must be fully mixed into the cold liquid before heating. If they start cooking unevenly or are not dispersed, they cannot trap the cloudy particles, and the soup stays murky.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, leek, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, leek, egg. 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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