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Family Soup

A hearty beef soup with carrots, parsnip, onion, turnips, tomatoes, celery, cabbage, and marjoram.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Family Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the beef into three pieces and wash it well.

  2. In a large pot, combine the beef and water, adding the salt.

  3. Bring to a hard boil, skimming off the scum that rises.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer steadily, adding fresh coals as needed.

Add the vegetables and simmer

  1. After 3 hours, add the carrots, parsnip, onion, turnips, tomatoes, celery, and cabbage.

  2. Place the marjoram in a thin muslin rag and add it to the pot.

  3. Let the soup simmer until dinner time, skimming as necessary.

  4. If serving the meat, remove the best parts 2 hours before serving.

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. Parsnip + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 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

Beef shin or leg
Breaks down into rich, gelatin-laden broth and tender meat during long simmering.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth as it softens into the broth.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the soup as they cook.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, giving the broth its tangy backbone.
Cabbage
Adds mild sweetness and substance as it softens in the broth.
Sweet marjoram
Contributes a delicate, aromatic herbal fragrance to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after the boil. Scum is coagulated proteins and impurities that rise as the broth heats. Skimming them while the soup first boils and during simmering keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, parsnip, onion, turnip, celery, cabbage):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, parsnip, onion, turnip, celery, cabbage. 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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