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Beef Soup

A soup made from a soup bone, spices, brandy, butter with flour, vermicelli, carrot, and mashed hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the soup bone a day before you need it.

  2. Skim off the grease the next day.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. Add spices, brandy, butter mixed with flour, vermicelli, and grated carrot.

Serve

  1. Mash the hard-boiled eggs smooth and place them in a tureen.

  2. Pour the soup over the mashed eggs.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Soup bone
Simmers into the stock that forms the body of the soup.
Brandy
Adds a sharp, aromatic note that rounds out the broth.
Butter
Rubbed into browned flour to thicken the soup and add richness.
Vermicelli
Adds thin pasta strands that soften in the hot broth.
Hard-boiled eggs
Mashed smooth to add body and richness beneath the soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the grease the next day. Fat that rises and sets on a chilled stock can make the soup greasy and heavy, so removing it cleanly keeps the broth clear and light.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, butter, flour, egg. 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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