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Soup

A Good Family Soup

A hearty soup made with bacon or ham, beef, cabbage, potatoes, rice, carrots, and turnip.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Good Family Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Fry the bacon or ham with the onion and cabbage until browned.

  2. Transfer to a soup kettle with the beef, potatoes, rice, carrots, turnip, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour in 2 quarts of hot water and set over low heat.

  4. Skim the surface until no more scum rises, then add 2 more quarts of water.

  5. Once the potatoes are done, remove and mash them.

  6. Let the soup simmer for 3 hours after removing the potatoes.

  7. Take out the meat, let the soup simmer for another hour, then strain it.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the meat into neat pieces and add it back to the soup.

  2. Thicken the soup with the mashed potatoes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching until hot.

  3. Serve with toasted bread cut into dice.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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
Provides rich meaty flavor and substance as it simmers slowly in the broth.
Bacon or ham
Adds smoky, savory fat and depth to the broth when browned first.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook and, when mashed, thicken the soup.
Rice
Softens and adds body and starch to the soup as it simmers.
Cabbage
Contributes mild sweetness and vegetable body to the broth.
Onion
Browned with the bacon, it adds savory aroma and sweetness to the base.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with the mashed potatoes. Potatoes can scorch on the bottom of the pot, and scorched starch gives a burnt taste. Stirring constantly over heat keeps the starch dispersed and evenly thickened.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, onion, potato, rice, carrot, turnip):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, onion, potato, rice, carrot, turnip. 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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