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A Brown Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup made with round beef, vegetables, and a mustard-flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Brown Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cut a vein from the round of beef into a square shape.

  2. Place the beef in a pot with 4 to 5 quarts of water, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  3. Boil for 3 hours.

  4. Add diced carrots, turnip, chopped onions, chopped celery, and toasted bread to the pot.

  5. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

  6. If the meat is not brown enough, remove it.

  7. Add a little soy sauce.

Stew the next day

  1. For the next day, cut up 2 carrots, 1 turnip, and 2 onions.

  2. Put the meat and vegetables in a saucepan, adding pepper, salt, cloves, and just enough water to cover the meat.

  3. Stew gently for 2 to 3 hours.

  4. Remove the meat.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix flour with water and 2 tablespoons of mustard.

  2. Stir the mixture into the gravy.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Pour the gravy and vegetables over the meat.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Round of beef
Provides the main meat and rich, savory flavor for the broth.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it is stirred in and brought to a boil.
Toasted bread
Adds body and helps thicken the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the broth and gravy.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the soup and gravy.

The step that matters

If the meat is not brown enough, remove it.. Meat that has not browned has less developed flavor. Removing it at the right point lets you judge color and avoid overcooking the meat during the long boil.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, bread. 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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