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Soup

Beef and Chicken Tea

A clear soup made with beef, chicken, salt, water, and finely chopped carrots, onions, leeks, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Beef and Chicken Tea

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the beef and hen together in a mortar.

  2. Add the coarse sea salt and place in a stew-pan with the water.

  3. Stir over heat until boiling.

  4. Add the finely cut carrots, onions, leeks, and celery.

  5. Boil for 30 minutes, then strain and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Pounded with the hen to give the broth its meaty body and flavour.
Hen
Pounded with the beef to add rich chicken flavour to the broth.
Carrots
Cut fine so they release sweetness and flavour into the broth as it boils.
Onions
Cut fine so they release aromatic flavour into the broth as it boils.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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