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Clear Beef Soup

A clear soup made with beef, veal, carrots, pork or ham, onions, garlic, mace, water, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Clear Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef, veal, carrots, pork, and onions and put them in a pot.

  2. Insert six cloves into each onion and add them to the pot.

  3. Add the blade of mace and pour in one cup of water.

  4. Let it stew for 15 minutes.

Simmer

  1. Fill the pot with cold water and bring it to a boil, skimming off the scum about three times.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer gently for six hours.

  3. About thirty minutes before serving, add a small bunch of parsley.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a cloth before serving.

  2. Season with salt to taste and color with burnt brown sugar.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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
Provides the main meaty flavor and body as it simmers slowly over hours.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin from bones and connective tissue, giving the broth more body and mouthfeel.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook down.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth during the long simmer.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice notes to the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after boiling. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise when the liquid first boils. Removing it several times keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, which matters for a clear soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, veal, butter, pork, onion, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, veal, butter, pork, 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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