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Portable Soup

A thick veal and beef soup, set into flat dishes, cut into rounds, dried, and stored for portability.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Portable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large cauldron, melt the butter.

  2. Add the meat, bones, anchovies, and mace.

  3. Add the chopped celery and sliced carrots.

  4. Cover the cauldron and set it over moderate heat.

  5. Once the gravy begins to draw, keep skimming it until fully extracted.

  6. Add enough water to cover the meat and bring to a boil.

  7. Let it boil gently for 4 hours.

  8. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean pan.

  9. Reduce the liquid to one-third of its original volume.

  10. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

  11. Season with Cayenne pepper to taste.

Set and dry the cakes

  1. Pour the soup into flat dishes, about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Let it cool overnight, then cut into rounds slightly larger than a crown piece.

  3. Place the rounds in dishes to dry, turning them often.

  4. Once dry, store in a tin box with clean paper between each piece.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering to give the broth body and savoury depth.
Beef
Adds meaty flavour and gelatin that help the broth set firm when cooled.
Ham
Contributes salty, savoury flavour to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the broth.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the broth, adding deep savoury, umami flavour.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, vegetal flavour to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat and scum. Fat and impurities rising to the surface can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Removing them keeps the finished soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, ham, butter, celery, carrot, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, ham, butter, celery, carrot, pepper. 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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