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Beef Soup with Vegetables

A hearty soup made with beef bone, vegetables, rice, and tomatoes, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Soup with Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef or veal bone in 1 gallon of cold water and boil for 5 hours.

  2. Add salt and pepper, skim as necessary, then strain the broth.

  3. Set the broth in a cool place overnight and skim the fat the next day.

Finish the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped cabbage, potatoes, carrot, turnip, onion, rice, and strained tomatoes.

  2. Boil until the vegetables are soft and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 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

Beef or veal bone
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers, giving the broth body.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the soup and adding starchy body.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and releases starch, helping to thicken the soup.
Strained tomatoes
Add acidity and savory depth, giving the broth a richer color and flavor.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Fat and foam rise to the surface during the long boil. Skimming removes them so the broth tastes clean; chilling overnight lets the fat solidify on top for easy removal.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, potato, carrot, turnip, onion, rice):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, potato, carrot, turnip, onion, rice. 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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