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A Shin of Beef Soup

A hearty soup made with a beef shin, cabbage, turnips, carrots, onions, pepper, salt, and optional raised dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 Shin of Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Crack the shin of beef and place it in a large pot with 5 to 6 quarts of water.

  2. Boil for 5 to 6 hours, skimming often.

Add the vegetables

  1. Add the chopped cabbage, turnips, carrots, onions, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the bone and gristle half an hour before serving.

  2. If using raised dough, form a dozen small balls the size of a nutmeg and drop them into the soup.

  3. Boil for another 30 minutes.

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. Turnip + carrottop 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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Releases savory flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers for hours.
White cabbage
Adds bulk and mild sweetness as it softens in the broth.
Turnips
Contribute body and a slightly peppery sweetness as they cook down.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while softening in the broth.
Onions
Build savory depth and aroma as they cook into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth during the long boil. Foam and fat rise to the surface during prolonged boiling of beef. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy, muddy flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cabbage, turnip, carrot, pepper. 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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