Why it works: Beef and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,265 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓
Meat Soups
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Soak a 2‑inch cube of beef in ½ cup cold water for 30 minutes.
Heat the beef slowly to boiling, noting the coagulation temperature and color change.
Cook for 10 minutes.
Do not soak the second cube of beef.
Cook the second cube as in step 2.
Grind or chop the third cube into small pieces.
Cook the third cube as in step 2.
Make and clarify the soup
For soup, use 1½ pints of water for each pound of meat and bone.
Remove fat by passing a small piece of ice wrapped in cloth over the surface.
Divide the soup into two portions.
Clarify the first portion with 1 egg white and shell for every 2 quarts of soup.
Bring the clarified portion to a boil and skim or strain.
Serve
Serve the second portion with vegetables, rice, macaroni, or barley.
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.
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Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,265 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,350 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef
- Provides the flavor and protein that the soup is built on.
- Egg white and shell
- Coagulates as it heats, trapping particles so the broth clears.
The step that matters
Heating the beef slowly to boiling. Slow heating lets proteins coagulate gradually and float impurities to the surface, where they can be skimmed. Rapid heating can cloud the broth and break the coagulated material into fine particles.
“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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