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Old Fashioned Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup made with lean beef, marrow bone, carrots, leeks, celery, rice, parsley, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the beef and marrow bone, then place them in a kettle.

  2. Cover with 5 quarts of cold water and let stand for at least 1 hour.

  3. After 1 hour, place on the fire, cover, and heat slowly to boiling.

  4. Boil hard for a moment, then reduce heat to simmer slowly.

Add the vegetables and finish

  1. Add the sliced carrots and rice after 2 hours.

  2. An hour later, add the remaining ingredients except for the parsley.

  3. Add the parsley 5 minutes before serving.

  4. Stir frequently to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 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 shoulder
Provides rich beef flavour as it simmers slowly into the broth.
Marrow bone
Adds body and savoury depth to the broth as it cooks.
Rice
Thickens the soup slightly as its starch releases during simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the soup as they soften.
Leeks
Contribute mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Stir frequently to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom.. Rice starch is released as it cooks and can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pot, which causes sticking and a burnt taste. Regular stirring keeps the grains suspended and evenly cooked.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, celery, rice, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits about as well
  2. Turnipfits about as well
  3. Leekthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, celery, rice, parsley. 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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