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Soup

A hearty beef soup with bones, vegetables, and optional eggs, lemon, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine meat and bones in a pot with water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim off foam, then reduce heat to simmer for 5 hours.

  3. Add pepper and salt, then strain into a jar to cool.

  4. Store in a cool place for several days.

Finish and serve

  1. Fry onions in butter until brown before adding to the soup.

  2. Serve with yolks, poached eggs, lemon slices, or croutons in each bowl.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean fresh meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor as it simmers into the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin and minerals during long simmering, adding body and richness to the broth.
Butter
Browns the onions, adding fat and toasted, savory flavor to the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after the boil. Foam carries coagulated proteins and impurities; removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting. Simmering gently rather than boiling also keeps the broth clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, rice, butter, egg, lemon):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, rice, butter, egg, lemon. 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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