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Meat Soup

A clear broth made by simmering lean meat and optional bones for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and lamb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 896 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Meat Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the meat and bones thoroughly.

  2. In a clean soup pot, combine the meat and water.

Simmer

  1. Heat the pot gradually and bring to a simmer, keeping it covered.

  2. Skim off fat and scum frequently during cooking.

  3. If using cooked meat or bones, add them after 45 minutes of simmering.

  4. Simmer for at least 7 hours for best flavor, or make it the day before.

Strain

  1. Strain the soup into a tin or earthen vessel after cooking.

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 + lambtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Lamb + muttontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  4. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Clear lean meat
Provides the main meaty flavor and body of the broth.
Soft water
Acts as the liquid that slowly extracts flavor from the meat and bones.
Cooked beef, veal, lamb, or mutton bones and remnants
Add extra savory depth and gelatin-rich body to the broth when included.

The step that matters

Bringing the pot to a simmer gradually. Heating slowly while covered lets flavor and gelatin draw out of the meat gently. Boiling hard makes the broth cloudy and emulsifies fat into it, so skimming fat and scum during cooking keeps the soup clear.

“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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