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Beef Soup

A hearty soup made from lean beef shank, bones, vegetables, spices, and optional vermicelli or pearl barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut all the lean beef off the shank.

  2. In a kettle, heat a little beef suet until browned.

  3. Add the bones and cover with water.

  4. Cover the kettle closely and cook slowly until the meat falls off the bones.

  5. Strain the soup through a colander and let it sit overnight to remove fat.

Finish the soup

  1. On the day of serving, fry the carrot, onion, and turnip until browned.

  2. Add the sugar, mace, cloves, allspice, and celery seed to the soup.

  3. Cook the mixture slowly for one hour.

  4. Strain the soup again before serving.

  5. If using vermicelli or pearl barley, soak them in water.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef from the shank
Provides meat flavor and body to the soup as it cooks down.
Beef suet
Adds fat for browning the kettle and enriching the soup's flavor.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and color when fried until browned.
Onion
Adds savory depth and sweetness when fried until browned.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body when fried until browned.

The step that matters

Removing the fat overnight. Chilling the strained soup lets fat solidify on top so it can be lifted off. Skipping this leaves the soup greasy and heavy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, turnip, sugar, clove, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, turnip, sugar, clove, allspice. 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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