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American Soup

A hearty vegetable soup made with veal and beef bones, tomatoes, turnip, carrot, onion, celery, potato, corn, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

American Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine the cold water, veal bone, and beef soup bone.

  2. Simmer for 5 hours.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

  4. Skim off all the fat once cooled.

Make the soup

  1. When ready to use, heat the jelly-like stock.

  2. For a vegetable soup, add the tomato, turnip, carrot, onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, celery, potato, and corn.

  3. If celery is unavailable, boil crushed celery seed in a bag with the soup.

  4. Strain before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal shank bone
Releases gelatin and body into the stock, giving it a jelly-like texture when cooled.
Beef soup bone
Adds meaty flavor and richness to the long-simmered stock.
Potato
Thickens the soup slightly and adds starchy body as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skim off all the fat once cooled. Fat rises and solidifies on chilled stock. Removing it before reheating keeps the soup clear and prevents a greasy mouthfeel.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Cuminfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, tomato, turnip, carrot, onion, 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.

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