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Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup made with shank, bones, carrots, onions, turnip, 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 broth

  1. Cut all the lean beef off the shank.

  2. Heat a little beef suet in a kettle, then fry the beef until browned.

  3. Add the bones.

  4. Cover with water and cover the kettle closely.

  5. Cook slowly until the meat falls from the bones.

  6. Strain the broth through a colander.

  7. Let it sit overnight to remove fat.

Add the vegetables and serve

  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 vegetables.

  3. Cook the mixture slowly in the soup for 1 hour.

  4. Strain again before serving.

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

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
Browned and slowly simmered meat gives the broth its savoury, meaty flavour and body.
Beef suet
Fat used for frying that carries flavour and helps the beef brown.
Onion
Fried until browned, adding sweetness and depth of flavour to the soup.
Carrot
Fried until browned, adding natural sweetness and colour to the broth.
Turnip
Fried until browned, adding mild sweetness and body to the broth.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, aromatic celery flavour during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Chilling the broth overnight and removing the fat. Fat that solidifies on cold broth can be lifted off cleanly, so the soup is not greasy. Straining again before serving removes remaining particles for a clear result.

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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